


Lady's Choice

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: All Things Proceed from Passion [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst and Humor, Automatic Writing, Birth Control, Blood Magic, Breaking Up & Making Up, Channeling, Chases, Classical Comedy Plot Arc, Coming of Age, Conflict of Interests, Corruption, Criminal Law, Cruciamentum, Curses, Dark Arts, Declarations Of Love, Dubious Consent, Emergency Contraception, Emotional Manipulation, Engagement, Episode: s02e17 Passion, Episode: s02e18 Killed by Death, Episode: s02e19 I Only Have Eyes For You, Episode: s02e20: Go Fish, Escapes, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Father-Daughter Relationship, Female Agency, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Gohsts, Grief/Mourning, Healing Rituals, High School, Horror, Illnesses, Infidelity, Internal Conflict, Juvenile Court, Juvenile Justice, Literary References & Allusions, Local Government, Love/Hate, M/M, Magic, Magical Accidents, Magical Girls, Making Love, Making Out, Marriage Proposal, Mid-life Crisis, Miracles, Monsters, Moral Responsibility, Morning After, Morning Sickness, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Murder-Suicide, Mystery, Mysticism, Older Man/Younger Woman, Oral Sex, Other, Paranormal, Poetry, Poltergeists, Pregnancy, Prescription Drugs, Redemption, References to Shakespeare, Requited Love, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Rose Quarts, Sadie Hawkins Dance, School Shootings, Sexual Content, Statutory Rape, Student/Teacher relationships, Teen Pregnancy, The Hellmouth, True Love, Unintentional Redemption, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unrequited Love, Vaginal Sex, Vampire Rituals, Vampires, Virgin Sacrifice, Werewolves, Witches, blood sacrifice, hands in new places, inappropriate relationships, pink floyd - Freeform, some Canon Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:45:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 121,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1223416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Buffy/Giles romance rewriting Season two from "Passion" through "I Only Have Eyes for You", and oh so much more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Night of Passion

**Author's Note:**

> This Book, Lady's Choice, is divided into Two Parts. The first 6 chapters make up Part I: "A Thing That Happened". The last seven chapters make up Part II: "What We Make".
> 
> For more information on Canon Compliance/Divergence and Story Mechanics and Themes, see series description.
> 
> If you've already read "Blood Screaming" and if you don't enjoy the act of comparison itself, you can probably start with Chapter 4 as long as you understand that there has been no sex (even solo) since Chapter 1, Angel's mistreatment of Spike is no harsher than Canon, everything has been pretty linear and therefore revealed less backstory, and we have yet to hear from David Pummil. Oh yeah, and forget everything you think you've learned about Hank Summers or Ira Rosenberg. If you've read "If This Be Error..." you might even start as late as Chapter 6; but you'll be missing a lot of important smut, snark, angst and colorful language. In either case, it might take you a minute to get comfortable with the moral and emotional tone for this piece if you do it that way, but it might also save you from getting bored.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Angel kills Jenny and Giles' thirst for vengeance nearly gets him killed, Buffy and Giles are driven by overwhelming emotion to do something they may regret. Xander and Cordelia decide to take their relationship to the next level, way beyond spending and groping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The First Chapter of Part I: "A Thing That Happened"

Sunnydale, CA. February 20, 1998

 

Buffy slapped Giles hard in the face, hard enough to knock him to the ground. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” she demanded, beside herself with rage and fear. Tears streamed down her face. Reeling from the shock of the blow, struggling to master his own anger and humiliation, Giles tried to get to his feet. Buffy stopped him at his knees, kneeling beside him, pulling him into her arms with the ferocity of a mother snatching her child from a busy street.

Rupert felt like a child. Like a fool. Like an un-man. A damned damsel in distress, in need of heroic rescue. But Buffy’s voice took on a quavering, forlorn tone as the enormity of what she had prevented seemed to strike her. “You can’t leave me!” she wailed, suddenly, desperately a child herself, clinging to him, seeking his strength, his protection.“I can’t do this alone!”

They melted together, sobbing, their faces pressed against each other, needing contact, needing to be closer than it was physically possible to be, to draw strength from each other that neither alone possessed. Afterward, neither could say if he had kissed her forehead first or she had kissed his cheek; but in moments they were kissing one another about the face and head with that same fierce, protective love that kept them clinging to each other as they wept.

It wasn’t until he found Buffy’s lips pressed to his, parting under his own sudden, impulsive desire to part them, that Giles realized they were lying on the ground. His hands were pressed against her back, her own holding the back of his head, pulling his mouth to hers. They lay face to face, chest to chest, groin to groin, thigh to thigh. Only clothing separated their bodies; there was no space between them. He could feel the rise of her breast against his shirt front, and he was certain she could feel him rising against her as well.

The alarm bells of guilt, fear, honor, grief, even of compassion that rang out in Rupert’s soul were distant, muted, drowned out by the louder rush of blood in his ears and the pounding of his heart. Flesh swelled with passion aching to be expressed. Conscience reproached but could not restrain him. He pressed forward so that he was slightly less beside Buffy, slightly more atop her. His hands moved greedily to her breasts as their hungry kisses continued. Half dreading and half longing for the eventual, inevitable moment when she would stop him, refuse him, reprove him, he moved his kiss downward, along the curve of her jaw, to her neck and the arc of her breast. His shaking fingers fumbled with her shirt buttons, at last exposing a silky white bra. A front clasp design, it opened easily, spilling her soft, round breasts into his trembling hands. He lowered his mouth to taste them, teasing them with his tongue.

Buffy made a noise between a gasp and a sigh. She clung to him almost painfully, pulling him more fully atop her, parting her thighs slightly so that he now lay between them. This had gone far enough. Too far, he realized, as one realizes that twilight has deepened inexorably into night. “This is impossible,” he murmured. But the impossible was rapidly becoming inevitable. The already strained connections between reason and action were being broken. All he wanted now was to get his cock out. Buffy seemed to have the same agenda. Her hands were groping for his fly. His found their way inside the waistband of her pants. As if according to some unspoken plan, they undressed each other in rapid unison. Their hands roamed one another’s newly naked bodies. He collapsed on top of her at last, flesh to flesh.

“Please,” he breathed, the only fragment of a thought he could find a word for.

“Yes,” she murmured against his ear. “Oh _God_ yes!”

At that moment, all the alarm bells in the world could not have stopped him. He pushed his rock hard cock into Buffy’s soft, wet, waiting pussy, burying it to the hilt in one long, easy stroke. She gasped as if taken by surprise, although she had to have known what was about to happen. Somewhere in the distant, foggy realm where his thoughts still resided, Giles was as shocked as Buffy seemed to be, but it didn’t make any difference. The knowledge of the lines he was crossing, had now crossed, was a distant static, like the pop and crackle of a vinyl record, which intrudes upon the music but cannot diminish it.

Buffy inhaled sharply again and began to moan with pleasure as he moved within her, rhythmically varying the length and speed of his strokes to match the ever more rapid rhythm of their two beating hearts. As their bodies writhed together, Rupert’s legs continually scraped painfully against the asphalt parking lot, but not nearly painfully enough for him to want to stop what he was doing. He was dimly aware that this probably meant Buffy was getting scraped up as well, or rather worse, but she was far from complaining.

Passion raged between them like a rock symphony rolling in waves through their bodies. At last, the intensity of pleasure was too much for both of them. Buffy bucked her hips against him, her cries of ecstasy ringing through the night, “Yes! Yes! God, Yes!” The spasms that shook her body sent Rupert over the edge, unable to hold back his own orgasm any longer. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. He was shaken to the core of his being. His moaning was deep and guttural, like that of an animal. He came like a fire hose, spraying what felt like buckets of semen deep into Buffy’s body. “Oh, Buffy,” he cried, “I love you. I love you so much!”

But, seconds later, as they lay gasping in one another’s arms, their passion spent, Rupert felt an emptiness in his heart, which was quickly filled with grief and shame. Suddenly, he found himself on his feet. So suddenly that Buffy looked up at him, startled, stung. He stood there, absurdly naked, staring down at her helplessly, apologetically as she pulled herself into a sitting position and tucked her knees under her chin. Guiltily, he turned away, unable to face her. Instantly, he understood what a mistake, what an insult this was, but it was too late.

“Buffy, I—” he began plaintively, turning and forcing himself to look in the general direction of her face, but his voice trailed off to nothing as he watched her wrap her arms around her legs, bury her face in her knees and cry. There was nothing he could say that would change the fact that at that delicate moment he had literally turned his back on her. There was no excuse for such an act, no denying what it meant. He _was_ ashamed of what they had just done and, as well she might, Buffy took it as a judgment against her own behavior as well as his. He felt as if he owed her an apology, but he also realized that nothing could have been more insulting to her.

Looking up again, he was reminded that the world around them was lit, not by starlight, but by the none too distant raging of fire through the factory. The flames were strange and varied shades, only mostly in the range of yellows, oranges and reds. God alone knew what ancient chemical residues were feeding those flames or what poisons the smoke might contain.“Buffy!” Giles shouted, as firmly and evenly as he could manage, extending a hand to help her from the ground, “We’ve got to get out of here!”

Looking away from him, her eyes in shadow, Buffy stood without his help. Quickly and silently, she gathered her clothing. Giles did the same. A furtive glance in Buffy’s direction showed him that in fact her lower back, buttocks and the backs of her thighs were scraped raw to the point of bleeding. They dressed quickly, without speaking and walked briskly across the parking lot to his battered gray Citron. By the time they got to the car, he was able to look Buffy in the face intermittently and she had recovered herself enough to give him a small meant-to-be-comforting smile that told him she felt as lost as he did. She looked tired. He felt tired, emotionally wrung out. Her hopeful, searching liquid green gaze was more than he could bear. “I’d... better get you home,” he said stiffly, turning to face the steering wheel, avoiding further eye contact.

Buffy was silent as Giles put the car in gear, drove across the parking lot and pulled out onto the street. “Are you going to be alright on your own tonight?” she asked after a long moment. She sounded deeply concerned for his well being, which made Rupert feel all the more strongly that he was a good for nothing son-of-a-bitch.

“Yes,” he replied woodenly, “I’ll be alright.” The prospect of facing the coming night alone chilled him deep within his soul, but he was not fool enough to suggest that she return to his home with him, or worse still he to hers. Among other things, it was beginning to dawn on him that, at least by the lights of the puritan country in which he currently resided, he had just committed a very serious crime. He was suddenly struck with a vision of an event which he had not witnessed himself but had heard Buffy recount many times with pride and admiration: Joyce Summers brandishing an ax and commanding a snarling demon, ‘You get the Hell away from my daughter! Nobody lays a hand on my little girl!’

They drove on until the silence between them once again became embarrassingly long. “I... um... I had Willow do the spell,” Buffy said finally. “On your house. He won’t be back.”

“That’s a small mercy, I suppose,” Giles mumbled distractedly. Immediately he felt a great fool and ingrate for such a tepid response to the news that these school kids with whom he had surrounded himself had once again gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect him from evil forces from which he should have been shielding them. “That is... I mean... thank you. That was... erm... very good thinking, to get that taken care of. Good work.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Buffy dryly. Then, gently, she added, “I just want you to be safe. I meant what I said. I can’t lose you.”

Giles’ heart swelled with affection and regret. “Oh, Buffy...” he began. But there was no way to finish the thought. Nothing he could say would change the fact that he had done her a grave disservice, that he had used her to take the place of his absent love, that he had only been able to do so because she felt dependent on him and responsible for Jenny’s death. He had taken advantage of her guilt and grief to ease his own suffering. He had betrayed her trust, though perhaps she did not yet see it that way. Suppressing a sigh, he let the matter rest and tried to concentrate on driving.

The drive went on forever in oppressive silence. Yet, too soon, they pulled to a stop in front of the house on Revello Drive. Buffy reached to open her door and suddenly, desperately, he wanted her to stay. He could not let her get out of the car. He couldn’t bear the thought of it. Quickly, he grabbed her hand, squeezed it. “Buffy I—” I what? Need you? Want you? Love you? All of these things were true, but not true enough, not in the right way. “I... can’t do this without you either,” he finished haltingly, which at least, _was_ true enough. “Thank you, for saving me,” he added, wanting to have something more to say.

Buffy looked towards the house. Joyce stood watching them from the brightly lit front window. “I’ll... um... call you tomorrow,” she said nervously, “you know, just to see how you are.”

“Thanks,” he replied warmly, feeling truly grateful, “I’d like that.”

Buffy pushed her car door the rest of the way open, clearly signaling her intent to leave. Letting go of her hand felt like losing his grip on a lifeline, but he did it, forcing a smile. Buffy stood then turned back towards the car, one hand on the door, the other on the frame, as if she intended to say something. Rupert waited tensely. Suddenly, in one smooth motion, she turned and slammed the door. Buffy hurried into the house, side stepping her mother, who had come to the door. Joyce stood for a moment looking worriedly out into the night. Giles didn’t wait for her to turn and close the door. He quickly put the car in gear and drove away.

*****

Xander’s heart was hammering so hard, it threatened to jump right out of his chest. The back seat! There could be only one reason why Cordelia wanted to move to the back seat. They could kiss all night long in the front seat. They could grope pretty good in the front seat too. For the last two months, they had been to second base and, increasingly, on to third in Cordelia’s front seat two or three times a week. In the front seat, he had explored her bare breasts with his hands and mouth until he could feel and taste every inch of them vividly from memory. In the front seat, she had wrapped her hands around his cock, stroking it gently until he came all over the glove box. In the front seat, he had reached tentative, longing fingers into deep, forbidden places never before touched by the hand of Xand. Now they were moving to the back seat!

“You lay down first,” Cordelia advised, seeming happy and relaxed, “I’ll lay on top of you. It’s harder to shift around when we’re both back there.” Xander nodded and managed to grunt in what he hoped was an affirmative tone as he lay his head on an arm rest and positioned his back as flat against the leather seat as possible. “Now,” Cordelia all but purred as she swung fluidly through the doorway and eased herself down onto him, “this is a little more... relaxing.”

Xander felt anything but relaxed. His skin was humming with anticipation, but his chest was tight with something akin to dread. Needing to act swiftly, afraid of losing his nerve, he reached for the back of Cordelia’s head, to pull her face close to his, to kiss her passionately, or something along those lines. Of course, she chose that exact moment to rear back and toss her head like a show pony, leaving him clutching a handful of hair, his fingers tangled in it awkwardly and, apparently, painfully. “Oww, Xander,” she said crossly, “what are you doing?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, extracting his hand as gently as he could. “I’m just a little nervous I guess.”

Cordelia’s smile returned. “Don’t be,” she said, leaning down across his body so that her face was near to his, kissing him gently on the lips, “we’ve got all night.”

Xander did relax, just a little. Kissing felt good and normal and exciting in a familiar, manageable way. Sliding his hands under Cordelia’s shirt, holding her bra clad breasts in his hands felt even better. When she knelt over him, pulled her shirt over her head and reached behind her back to unhook her bra, spilling her breasts across his chest as she poured her body fluidly against him; that felt better still. Leaning her backward slightly, so that he could rise a few inches off the seat, Xander began wriggling out of his own T-shirt, keeping his mouth in contact with Cordelia’s face and chest until the last possible second before pulling it over his head, briefly separating them. They fell back against the seat, both bare from the waist up now, flesh to flesh.

While their mouths were busy exploring this exposed flesh, their hands were free to go questing into the still hidden regions. Xander smoothed his hands over the back of Cordelia’s skirt, squeezing her buttocks through the coarse material, then, pushing the skirt upward, to her waist, slid his hands over the smoother texture of those same firm buttocks covered with hose and panties alone. Cordelia sighed happily, rubbing her pelvis against his. Inside his jeans, his dick twitched in response. Gently sliding a hand between them, she rubbed him through his clothes, making him harder. Xander’s heart was hammering again, but this time in a good way, mostly. His hands trembled as he took hold of Cordelia’s under things and began to pull them down. She lifted her body from his slightly, making the process smoother. At the same time, with a steady, practiced hand, she undid his fly. She tugged gently at his hips, hinting for him to lean them slightly forward, so she could slide his jeans and briefs down.

Once again their bodies fell together in the cramped space, both naked now except for the tangle of clothing around Xander’s calves and feet, making him feel bound in a deliciously naughty way as Cordelia roamed freely over him. His cock was very hard now, so hard that it stood between them making it impossible for Cordelia to lie flat against him. She had a solution to that problem. Straddling him, taking his dick in her hand, she guided it inside her. Xander thought he might pass out from shock and delight. Without being aware of making a decision to do so, he was moving inside of her in short swift strokes. She moved atop him, effectively lengthening each thrust and gently encouraging him into a slower rhythm. Within a couple of minutes; however, he was seized by an overwhelming impulse to thrust harder and faster. He did, grabbing Cordelia by the hips.

He was on the edge of coming when it occurred to him that he had never once in his entire life discussed with anyone including Cordelia any method of birth control other than a condom, which he had dutifully carried in his wallet for almost two years now, but was not wearing. A panicked part of his mind told him to pull out, but in this position, that was practically impossible to do, at least without communicating his intentions to Cordelia and getting her to cooperate. There was no more time to think about it. He came inside of her. For a moment, the intensity of pleasure blocked out every other thought and emotion.

Cordelia collapsed against him, sighing. It was a small sigh. Pleasure, unless he was mistaken, mixed with disappointment in that gentle exhalation. He was forced to admit that the actual sex, as such, had not lasted very long, nor had Cordelia behaved anything like what he imagined a woman might if she were having an orgasm. He felt almost as if he should try to explain or apologize. “I told you I only needed five minutes,” he mumbled sheepishly.

Cordelia snuggled against him lovingly. “Actually,” she said silkily, “for a first effort, that was... pretty good. I’d say you have... unlimited potential.” Xander, who was used to measured praise from Cordelia, found her honest yet optimistic critique more reassuring than an improbable insistence that he was naturally and without training an amazing lover. As they lay there, naked and warm in each other’s arms, he felt his body recovering, becoming ready for another round of passion. But there was still that one worry, and he resolved to tackle it before tackling Cordelia.

“Cordy,” he began, shifting nervously beneath her, “this may be... a little late to bring this up... but, I mean I _have_ condoms, but...”

Cordelia laughed out loud. “Yeah,” she said smiling, “this would be a little late to bring that up. I’m on the Pill silly. I mean, what kind of a moron do you think I am?”

****

“Was that Mr. Giles?” Joyce asked as Buffy fairly sprinted past her. Then, registering her daughter’s hurry to be elsewhere she called to her retreating back, “Buffy, are you okay?”

Buffy deliberately put a few stairs behind her before calling out “Fine, Mom.” She knew Joyce was too used to this recurrent lie to be likely to argue. After all the drama of the day, Joyce took the hint and let her be, probably assuming that it was grief over Miss Calendar’s murder that was upsetting her daughter. Buffy felt a fresh stab of guilt at using the dead woman in this way, to cover her own transgression. As if her mother could possibly have any inkling of what had happened!

Buffy didn’t quite believe it herself, and she was the one with no skin on her backside. Yet it was undeniably true. Buffy had just had sex, for the second time in her life, and it was with Giles! Rupert Giles was older than her parents. He was her Watcher, her teacher. He was... well, _Giles_. Grownup, solid, boring, smug, superior, old, English Giles. She could hardly believe he was the same person, the same _man_ who had just made love to her so passionately, so intensely and so... _well_.

Of course, she knew intellectually that he was not _that_ old. Certainly not as old as Angel. But, she realized, it felt wrong for another reason. Buffy loved Giles, but she didn’t _love_ him, not in that way, and she knew, whatever he felt for her, the passion he had just poured into her really belong to Jenny Calendar. Buffy needed to be alone, she told herself. She needed to clear her mind, to sleep, to pretend that none of the events of the last two days, or the last two months had ever happened. Yet when she got to her room and saw that Willow was there after all, she was flooded with relief. “Oh, Wil,” she gasped, “Thank God you’re here.”

“I couldn’t just go home,” Willow explained. “I had to make sure you were okay. Are you? Okay?” She asked doubtfully, taking in Buffy’s disheveled appearance. Buffy’s face was streaked with tears and soot. Her hair was dirty and disarranged. Her clothes were rumpled and... misbuttoned? Why would her clothes be misbuttoned? Was she even wearing a bra? Her breasts hung differently beneath her shirt, further apart, accentuating the gapping of the buttons, her nipples were clearly visible underneath. Something other than friendly concern stirred deep within Willow, something that she chose to label “embarrassment,” but she ignored it, focusing on her friend’s needs.

“No,” Buffy said shaking her head, “I’m not okay.” There were tears in her eyes. “I... just made a really big mistake... and now everything is bad, and I don’t know what to do.”

Panic clouded Willow’s face, “Oh, Buffy, is Giles... he didn’t... Angel didn’t ... I mean he’s not...?”

“No, no” Buffy reassured her, her tone oddly ironic, “Giles is definitely alive. I got there just in time. The fang gang got away clean, but the factory is history. He burned it down!” This last revelation was stated with stark amazement. Willow was amazed herself.

“Why would Angel...?”

“Not Angel,” Buffy corrected, “Giles.”

“Wow,” Willow breathed, stunned. “Arson. That’s a side of him we’ve never seen before. He’s like a whole new Giles... or... you know... a whole old... Giles,” she reflected, “I mean... he _is_ the same person that Ethan Rayne insists on calling ‘Ripper.’ I guess he didn’t get that name by being the biggest perfectionist in his sewing circle after all.”

A sharp laugh escaped Buffy’s lips. “Oh you don’t even know the half of it!” She buried her face in her hands, ashamed to look Willow in the eye. “He’s... not himself... and I... I’m such an idiot and everything’s a mess... because... because...” Buffy was really crying now. “We’re still in love with _them_ and not with each other, and it’s all just wrong and stupid and pointless!” 

Buffy flung herself face down on her bed and sobbed. Now Willow was confused as well as concerned. Buffy’s words, her actions, even her appearance seemed to imply... something impossible. “Buffy,” she ventured hopefully, desperately clinging to her doubts, “I think maybe you must have breathed in some kind of fumes. From the fire? You’re... not making sense.”

Buffy forced herself to look into Willow’s eyes. “I slept with him,” she said. She was so matter-of-fact about it that Willow, suddenly relieved, thought she must be misinterpreting the whole thing, seeing a new grief where there was only a fresh welling of an old one.

“Well, yeah” she acknowledged, “and I know you feel badly about everything that’s happened since, but you can’t keep beating yourself up for what Angel does. You’re not res—”

“No, Wil,” Buffy cut in, starting to feel exasperated at having to repeat herself, at having to put such a fine point on her shame. “Not Angel. I slept with Giles.”

Willow struggled not to understand what she was hearing. “You sle— You mean you dosed off... in... in his car?” Buffy just looked at her as if to say, _come on, even you can’t be that innocent_. Willow scrunched up her face involuntarily. “Oh, Buffy,” she said with distaste, disappointment; then, again, with concern, pity, vicarious regret, “Oh Buffy.”

Willow took a minute to catch her breath, to try to stuff the idea of Buffy and Giles... together... into her head. Buffy looked up at her miserably, needing best-friendly support that she was still struggling to feel. “Well, okay,” she assayed finally, trying to reassure herself as well as Buffy that everything was still more or less normal and not horribly, horribly wrong. “That was... a bad decision. But we all make bad decisions, you know, from time to time...” 

The high pitched squeaking in Willow’s voice wasn’t helping, she realized, but there was no way to keep it out. Willow whimpered miserably, completely spun no matter how hard she tried not to be. Predictably, this did not have the effect of making Buffy feel better about what had happened. 

Buffy clutched at Willow’s hands, panicked, as if she had only just realized the enormity of what she had revealed. “No one can know about this,” she half begged, half demanded, “Wil, promise me you won’t tell anyone, not even Oz and especially not Xander. Not even Giles can know that you know. Willow, promise me!”

“Of course,” Willow assured her, with a sinking feeling in her stomach. “I won’t tell a soul.” Of course she would keep Buffy’s secret. She had been privy to Buffy’s sexual secrets before now. But sex with a two-hundred-something-year-old vampire was... other worldly... Gothically romantic. It was the kind of secret that made a girl feel... tingly. And anyway, at the time that it had been an actual secret between them, it was a mere possibility, not a reality. Sex with a forty-something-year-old librarian was... after-school-specially. It was the kind of secret that made a girl feel... creepy. Of course, she herself had had fantasies about— But this was very, very real.

“How...?” Willow couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why...? What _happened_?”

Buffy shrugged, wiping her eyes, seeming to get a handle on her emotions. “Seemed like a good idea at the time?” she offered lamely. More seriously, she added, “Wil, you didn’t see him. When I dragged him out of that building, I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. Then, when I could see that he was coming to, I just felt so... so...”

“Relieved?” Willow guessed.

“Angry,” Buffy said firmly. “Terrified. There he was rushing off to die for... her after everything that she—And I needed him. And he was... I almost lost him,” Buffy concluded, speaking barely above a whisper. She sighed deeply. “I really didn’t know what I was feeling. We were just kind of holding each other... at first... and I guess things kind of... escalated.”

Buffy buried her face in her hands again. Willow shifted uncomfortably. “Look, Buffy,” she said, “It’s almost midnight. Why don’t we try to get some sleep? Maybe in the morning you’ll feel a little better, not a lot maybe, but a little, and you... and... and Giles can talk things out... at least get some clarity on... where you stand.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed halfheartedly. “I guess maybe you're right...” But she _was_ troubled about where she stood with Giles. Very troubled. He had said he loved her; then, moments later, he had been too ashamed even to look at her. How much did it actually mean for a guy to say ‘I love you’ at that _exact_ moment, she wondered. Angel had said she had a lot to learn about men, and Buffy realized it was true. 

Of course, Angel had also said he loved her... the morning after. In his case, it had been a cruel joke, but then, she reminded herself, he was an evil, soulless demon who delighted in causing her pain. Whereas, Giles was... _Giles_. She could hardly believe he would have said something like that to her if he hadn’t meant it. What if she had misread him altogether? What if he had jumped up, unable to look at her, because he felt rejected, because she hadn’t said that she loved him too? 

Buffy struggled to put her concerns into words. “I... I just don’t want to hurt him,” she explained. “I mean, how do you tell a... guy that you don’t think of him, you know, that way, _after_ you’ve stripped him naked and banged him in a parking lot?”

“Well...” said Willow, shifting uncomfortably again, “I don’t really feel qualified to answer most of that. But I do know a thing or two about rejection. And I know it helps a lot if the other person is honest with you and shows that they care about your feelings. Plus, I heard this crazy rumor that, when it comes to guys, sleeping with them first kind of softens the blow.”

“I hope you’re right about that,” said Buffy skeptically.

“It does seem counter-intuitive,” Willow agreed. “But, guys are different from girls or... you know... so I’ve heard. Just, don’t tell him you’re still in love with Angel,” she advised.

Buffy felt a sudden flush of anger, “I’m not—!” she began to protest, but she knew better. “Okay, I am,” she admitted, “but the Angel I love is dead. He’s gone forever, just the same as Miss Calendar is. I don’t think I really understood that until tonight.”

“My God,” Willow gasped, her eyes going round with horror. For a moment Buffy assumed she had only been struck once again by the reality of Miss Calendar’s murder. Then, Willow took Buffy by the shoulders and gave her a serious, searching look. She opened her mouth as if to say something but hesitated, seeming to think better of it.

“Wil,” Buffy asked, slightly unnerved, “What?”

Willow released her shoulders, seeming embarrassed by her sudden excess of hands, folding them awkwardly in her lap. “Buffy,” she whined, repositioning herself slightly, so that they were looking at one another in profile rather than full in the face, “I don’t mean to be a cynic, and maybe you don’t want to hear this, but maybe it’s yourself you should be worried about protecting.”

Buffy felt puzzled and somehow, indefinably insulted. “Willow,” she asked,” What do you mean?”

“I mean, Giles didn’t go to the factory looking for... a shoulder to cry on. He went there looking for revenge... on Angel... for killing the woman he loved. I mean in... evolutionary terms... when one...male takes away another male’s...mate...”

“No!” said Buffy emphatically. “I get what you’re saying, and no. Giles isn’t using me to... score points on Angel. He’s not—He wouldn’t—”

“Buffy,”Willow persisted gently, “you just said he wasn’t himself. I mean, Giles is a good man, I know that, and he cares about you, really he does. But, Buffy, he is still a man, which is to say an ape, which is to say a big, hairy male animal.”

“So, you’re saying... what, exactly?”

“I’m saying, don’t be too disappointed if Giles doesn’t mind being ‘rejected’ as much as you might think.”

Buffy sighed deeply. She loved Willow, and Willow was very smart, but she was not sure how much stock she could place in the relationship advice of a socially awkward virgin who had really only been dating for a few weeks. “I hope your right,” she said, “about that last part anyway. I don’t feel like worrying about it anymore tonight.”

“Yeah,” Willow agreed, wanting to take a break from thinking about the subject herself, “let’s get some sleep.”

“Well, actually, you go ahead,” said Buffy awkwardly, scrunching up her face. “I... kind of need to take a shower first.” Willow, avoided making any comment and, she hoped, any expression in response. While it was true that Buffy was smudged with visible dirt and soot, just thinking about what _else_ she might need to wash away made Willow feel a little queasy; and yet, incongruously, a little jealous.

****

Xander was on top this time, his strokes more controlled, even, slowly building until Cordelia begged, pleaded, commanded him to move harder, faster, deeper within her. Moaning and squealing with pleasure, she moved her own body in rhythm with his until at last, the two lay gasping in unison, basking in the glow of carnal satisfaction.“So,” Cordelia panted teasingly, leaning close against Xander’s bare chest, “what should we do with the rest of the night?”

Xander grinned happily, no reason to worry that his girlfriend was disappointed _this_ time. “I’m exhausted,” he murmured against her hair. “Unbelievably happy, but exhausted.”

“Well, I can’t go home,” said Cordelia matter-of-factly, her breathing already returning to normal. “My parents think I’m staying over at Harmony’s.”

“Harmony’s?” Xander asked incredulously.

“I find it helps to keep them a little behind on my social life,” Cordelia explained lightly.

“But what if they try to check?” Xander worried aloud. “Won’t Harmony rat you out?”

Cordelia shrugged. “They haven’t checked to make sure I was at Harmony’s at any point in the past ten years. I’d say it’s a calculated risk.” Cordelia sighed again, a little sadly, Xander thought. He ignored it, hoping he was imagining something that wasn’t there.

“I can’t go to my house either,” he pointed out. “I’m supposed to be at Willow’s comforting her after... after, you know, everything.”

Cordelia was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. “Maybe we should go check on Giles,” she mused. “I only spoke to Willow for a minute on the phone, and all I really got out of her was that he’s alive, but she just seemed kind of... I don’t know... weird about it.”

Xander was skeptical of this idea. Among other reasons, it seemed like it might require him to stand up in the near future. “I don’t know, Cordy,” he yawned. “It’s like, two something in the morning. Maybe we should let him get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” said Cordelia, a sarcastic edge to her voice, “In the bed where his girlfriend was found brutally murdered like six hours ago?”

“Or on the couch maybe?” Xander suggested hopefully, near passing out himself.

Cordelia, was assaulted by the memory of Kevin Barker’s lifeless body tumbling infinitely towards her through the half open door of the AV room during the longest tenth of a second in the history of her Universe. She saw in microscopic detail the two tiny puncture wounds through which the life had been sucked out of him by hollow fangs that had been thrust deep into his flesh. Uninvited. “Trust me,” she said. "He’s not asleep.”

****

Willow lay awake in Buffy’s bed as seconds tick, tick, ticked away, stretching the night into ever lengthening minutes. 2:00am... 2:01am... 2:02am.... Days away from morning. At least Buffy was finally asleep, breathing deep and evenly, her perfect breasts rising and falling, relieving Willow of the need to feign sleep herself.

Buffy and Giles. Giles and Buffy. It didn’t add up. For thirteen months (Had she known them only that long?!) she had heard daily from each of them the faults of the other. Giles was old, boring, stuffy, out-of-touch, demanding. Buffy was immature, unfocused, frivolous, obstinate, reckless, uncooperative. Privately, she had thought that they were each projecting their frustrations with their own responsibilities onto the other. Unfortunately, each seemed to go out of their way to confirm the other in these opinions. Despite all that, there was no denying the strong bond of trust and affection that had swiftly and steadily grown between them. Giles had become almost a third parent to Buffy, to all of them really. The thought of them coupling in a parking lot! It was disturbing, disorienting... and uncomfortably arousing.

Willow wished she’d brought a sleeping bag. It made her feel strangely guilty to lie inches away from Buffy’s warm, slumbering form thinking these thoughts, like one trespassing in another’s home under false pretenses. How many times had she lain in her own bed moving her hands like a lover’s over her body, indulging in the fantasy that those hands belong to Rupert Giles, the smartest, strongest, bravest, and most thoroughly grown-up and dependable man she knew? Those very qualities had convinced her of the impossibility that anything could come of these midnight imaginings. Now, suddenly, her safely impossible fantasy was a dangerous reality, just not for her.

Once again, just as with Xander, Willow found herself running fourth in a three horse race behind a known enemy, any hypothetical female on Earth and Buffy. Rationally, she knew that this was not about her, any more than Xander’s feelings for Buffy, or Cordelia for that matter. She knew she ought to feel grateful for her new, blooming, thoroughly age appropriate romance with Oz, and worried for her friend (her _two_ friends) who had gotten themselves into this dangerously inappropriate situation. She did feel all of those things, but she also felt a tiny, sneaking resentment at being left behind as those around her plunged forward (or backward) into an exciting, if irresponsible, young adulthood.

****

It was nearly 3:00 when they arrived at Giles' doorstep. “I don’t know about this, Cordy,” Xander objected for the hundredth time, hesitating with his hand an inch from the doorbell. Granted every light in the house was on, but still, coming here seemed... intrusive. Cordelia made a noise that perfectly communicated her disgust and contempt for his cowardice. Shoving Xander out of the way, she leaned her palm against the doorbell so that it emitted a continuous buzzing within. Several minutes passed before they heard the faint sound of shuffling, hesitant footsteps. The hoarse, unsteady voice of Rupert Giles murmured through the door, “Buffy... Is that you?”

“Hardly,” Cordelia scoffed. “It’s me and Xander. Let us in so we can make sure you’re not in there hanging yourself or something.”

“Make sure I’m not...” Giles’ tone escalated rapidly from bewildered through incredulous to indigent to angry. “Cordelia!” he shouted through the door, “Go away!”

“Giles,” Xander implored, “could you please just let us in? It’s way too late to go home and we need a place to crash.”

Giles opened the door. “I am not running a... hotel, Mr. Harris,” he nearly snarled in his snidest, most superior, brilliant-teacher-put-up-on-by-idiotic-student voice. But his eyes were puffy and his more than usually lined face and disheveled hair were streaked with grime and tears.

“Oh please,” said Cordelia, rolling her eyes, squeezing past him over the threshold. But she jumped back quickly as his fist slammed into the wall, inches from her face, blocking her from further invading his home.

“Cordelia, Xander,” Giles crooned, between a purr and a hiss, refined yet menacing, “I will see you both on Monday. Please. Have a pleasant morning. SOMEWHERE ELSE!”


	2. Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Willow tries to help Buffy and Giles deal with the consequences of their One Night of Passion she stands in the way of Angel's plans for following up on the events of that fateful night with tragic and life changing results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: A Thing that Happened

Willow was dead to the world when the gray light of dawn filtered through the bedroom window, waking Buffy from none too peaceful a sleep. From the silence that hung like cobwebs throughout the house, she surmised that her mother was still asleep as well. She dressed quickly in Capris and a tank top, grateful that her Slayer healing powers had erased the marks left on her body by last night’s intimate encounter with asphalt. She wished for the millionth time that all the rest of the events of last night could be erased as easily.

Buffy walked out into the Saturday morning sunshine, wandering aimlessly, hoping to clear her head; but it refused to be cleared. Jenny Calendar was dead. Angel was responsible. Buffy was responsible. Giles was devastated and alone. She wanted to be there for him, but she couldn’t imagine being in a relationship with him. As sordid a light as it cast on the events of last night, he was still more like a second father to her than anything else. Like a father! The thought stabbed Buffy in the heart with guilt and trepidation. For all she knew, he could be a father, and she a mother, soon enough.

Her mother’s question from last night, about her encounter with Angel, rang in her ears, “Were you careful?” She had been so indignant at the suggestion that she needed to be reminded of such a basic principal of grown-up responsibility, as if she were a child who could not be trusted to care for herself. Yet, not three hours later, she had given herself to a man about whom she was not conscious of ever having had a previous sexual thought, and without so much as a word passing between them on the subject of birth control. Buffy laughed ruefully to herself, suddenly reminded of what Xander had said the first time he’d recklessly plunged into the world of the Slayer, following her down into a vampire infested sewer to try to save his friend Jesse. When she’d asked why he hadn’t bothered to bring a simple cross, let alone a blade or a stake, he’d answered with his usual aplomb, “The part of my brain that would tell me to bring those things is still busy telling me not to come down here.” The part of Buffy’s brain that would have told her to be ‘careful’ also would have told her not to have sex with Giles.

She knew that she needed to talk to Giles. She also knew that she didn’t want to call him from her home and risk her mom or even Willow overhearing. Yet, she couldn’t seem to make her footsteps wander in the direction of his apartment. It wasn’t because she had any anxiety about seeing him or being alone with him she told herself. She just couldn’t face returning to the scene of a murder for which she knew in her heart she was mostly responsible.

**** 

The dream fled quickly as Willow was rudely yanked from sleep by the ringing phone at Buffy’s bedside. Shreds of scattered images, sensations, fluttered through her consciousness: soft, gentle lips pressed to hers, blond hair brushing her neck, round full breasts rising under her grateful hands, familiar, but not her own. Oddly disappointed to find that she was alone, Willow hesitated a moment, then picked up the phone. This was not her home, but Joyce had probably left for the Gallery, and Buffy could be trying to call her.

She didn’t even get the chance to say ‘hello’. “Buffy?!” Giles cried out, his voice desperate and shaken.

Willow did her best to suppress a sudden, furious wave of anger that welled up within her at the sound of him. “No.” she said, shocked by the hard tone of her own voice, then, deliberately softer, “it’s Willow. I... just woke up, but I can see if Buffy is here.”

“Would you, please?” said Giles gratefully. “I... I need to talk to her, right away.”

Her heart went out to him, really... most of it. But she still held a firm conviction that someone—someone not Rupert Giles—should be looking out for Buffy. Willow put the receiver down on the bedspread and walked across the room to dutifully peer out into the empty hallway. “Buffy, telephone,” she called softly. No response, of course.“I’m sorry,” she told Giles, returning to the phone after what she judged was a decent interval. “She must have left while I was still asleep.”

She heard Giles muffled cursing through the hand he’d placed over his mouthpiece. “Do you know where—did she...did she have any...erm plans today, that you know of?” He asked. He was making a valiant but unsuccessful effort to sound less desperate.

Willow felt guilty but no less resolved. “I’m not sure,” she hedged, which was true, “I have to go soon though,” which was not, “but I’ll try to let her know you called... if I see her,” a blatant lie.

Giles’ tone sharpened slightly, despite his best efforts. “Willow,” he asked, “Did Buffy tell you anything...erm... strange...about last night?”

“No!” she said much too quickly, then “I have to go now! Bye!” She slammed down the phone. Damn. That had not gone well. Giles wasn’t an idiot. He had to know that she knew _something_ about last night. He could probably guess that she knew everything.

Willow was mildly surprised, and worried, to find that Buffy really wasn’t in the house, especially when she realized it was only 8:00. Joyce was sitting at the kitchen table in her gown and robe, drinking coffee and eating toast. She looked worried too.“Was that Buffy?” she asked. Willow shook her head. “Did she mention she was going out?”

“No” said Willow, “was there a note or anything?”

“Not that I could find,” said Joyce.

“I’m sure she just went for a walk,” Willow tried to reassure her.

Joyce sighed, “I really should get ready and go to the Gallery, but I was hoping to see her before I left. She was so upset last night; I wish I could make sure she’s all right.”Willow wished the same thing. She knew Buffy would be blaming herself for the murder on top of everything else. She really shouldn’t be alone right now.

“Well,” Willow said, “I’m going down town, so hopefully we’ll run into each other.”

“Hopefully,” said Joyce glumly. “I just wish there were something I could do to help.”Willow nodded sympathetically, helping herself to toast and milk. It seemed like it could be a long day.

She found Buffy two hours later, sitting alone at an outside table in front of the Espresso Pump. Buffy stared glassily out at the traffic, sipping what was probably not her first Mochachino. As Willow sat down opposite her, she looked up and sighed. “Just happened to be passing by?” she asked hopefully.

Willow shook her head. “I’ve been looking for you,” she admitted. “I’m worried about you.”

“Yeah,” said Buffy, “I’m worried about me too.”

“Have you talked to Giles?”

“No, I was just trying to get my courage up to go over there.”

“Maybe you should call him,” Willow suggested, her voice high pitched and forcibly bright, “you know, on the phone.”

“Wil,” said Buffy with mild annoyance, “I’m not afraid to be alone with Giles. I know... what happened before can never happen again. I just think I ought to tell him in person. It seems like the grown-up thing to do. I can’t say I’m looking forward to going over there, though.” Buffy looked down thoughtfully at her coffee.

“Are you really worried he’s going to feel... rejected?” Willow asked.

Buffy shrugged, “Honestly? I figure he’ll deal. He’s going to be way more upset about Miss Calendar’s murder than anything to do with me. I’m really more worried about... what’s already happened.”

“Well... what’s done is done,” Willow pointed out, feeling inept for having nothing better to say.

“True,” Buffy murmured pensively, “but that doesn’t mean there might not be... consequences.”

“Such as?” Willow asked.

Buffy looked at her nervously, “I’m worried I could be pregnant.”

Willow was shocked. Then she was shocked at herself for being shocked. Why hadn’t she thought of such an obvious problem? She was such an idiot! “Wow, Buffy,” she stammered, “I never—I mean, Giles is so... responsible. I guess—I mean, I would have thought—”

“What, that he’d bring along a box of condoms on an arson and revenge killing spree, in case it turned into a romantic evening?”

“Well...no,” Willow had to admit. “I guess not, but what about—I mean you aren’t ...taking anything?”

Buffy shook her head. “Well you know An—vampires, you know, they can’t. And I never thought—I mean I haven’t even thought about... dating... or anything since...since—” Buffy’s voice broke off miserably. Since she had burned the humanity out of her last lover with the power of her touch, Willow realized, horrified on her behalf.

“It’s, okay, Buffy,” Willow tried to reassure her, though she was far from convinced that things were in fact ‘okay’. “Anyway,” she went on, remembering a few things she had read, “you can’t be pregnant in twelve hours. It takes about two days for the... eggs and... and stuff to even get together. Then it takes about a week for... implantation and everything.”

“But there’s not anything you can do to stop it from happening,”Buffy pointed out, “you know, after the fact.”

“Actually, I’m not sure that’s true,” said Willow contemplatively. She wasn’t positive, but she thought she had read on the internet that you could take something right after sex to keep from getting pregnant. It seemed like there was a political controversy about it, in France or somewhere. She also knew that the hospitals where her parents had privileges did something for rape victims, to help keep them from getting pregnant.

“Seriously?” Buffy asked hopefully. “Is there really something I can do?”

“I don’t know,” Willow admitted, “but I think I can find out. My parents have tons of medical books. And we can look on the net,” she suggested seeming to warm to the idea. “You could come over now. Mom’s at a conference, and Dad’s probably at the clinic.”

Buffy sighed. For once, heading into deep research mode actually sounded like a relatively attractive option, but she knew she was just putting off the inevitable. “I don’t know, Wil,” she said. “At this point, it kind of feels like I’m avoiding Giles. I mean, I told him I would call him this morning, and it’s already after ten.”

Willow looked disappointed. She was disappointed. And worried. “You could call him from my house,” she suggested hopefully. She had a gut feeling that Buffy and Giles meeting, alone so soon after everything that had happened was a bad idea.

“Tell, you what,” Buffy suggested. “Why don’t you start researching, and I’ll come over later and help.”

“Sure,” said Willow, trying to think positive, realizing that Buffy was set on her decision to see Giles. “You can stop by Giles’s real quick, then come on over and we can research and have lunch.”Buffy made a non-committal noise. She was not at all sure that the things she and Giles had to say to each other could or should be dealt with that quickly.“Can I walk you over there?” Willow asked, still hoping to somehow lead events in a different direction.

“No,” said Buffy firmly. “Then he’ll know that I told you.”

Willow looked suddenly pale. “Buffy,” she all but squeaked, “can I tell you something and you promise you won’t get mad?”

“Willow, what?” Buffy demanded.

“I think maybe he sort of ... already knows.”

“How—?!” Buffy started to shout. A few heads turned in the direction of their table.

“Well, suspects anyway,” Willow back peddled quickly. “He called this morning, looking for you—”

“Wil—!” Buffy tried to interrupt, in a quieter but no less exasperated voice.

“... and he was sort of... fishing to see if I knew anything, you know, without telling me anything...”

“Willow,” Buffy demanded, “when were you going to tell me about this?!”

“Well,” Willow stammered, “I... um... I guess I just... didn’t...um...”

“He must be going crazy wondering who else knows about this,” Buffy railed, exasperated. “I’d better get over there.” As she rushed off, she added over her shoulder, “I’ll...call you... I guess... about the other thing.”

Giles opened the door before Buffy could even ring the bell. “Thank God you’re here,” he declared breathlessly. He looked worse than she’d ever seen him, worse than last night, worse even than the time she had found him sitting on the floor, slumped over a bottle, wallowing in self-pity over Jenny’s possession by Eyghon. Now, as then, he had been drinking and had not changed his clothes from the night before. But this time he rushed to put his arms around her and guide her into his living room.

She was glad that he was glad to see her, but seeing him in this state was a little frightening, and his hand grasping her shoulder made her feel uneasy.“I haven’t slept a wink,” he informed her earnestly, as if to confirm all her deepest worries. Buffy smiled nervously in response. His eyes were shining. He led her to the sofa, and they sat. She made sure to put about eighteen inches of space between them, though she felt foolish for doing so.

“I didn’t sleep well either,” she said, mostly to fill the silence that followed. Then, impulsively, she voiced her uncensored concerns, blurting out, “Giles, you have to get a hold of yourself. If the police see you acting so...guilty, they’re going to think you killed Miss Calendar.”

“Well thanks a lot, Buffy” Giles scoffed, his voice suddenly brittle, “that cheers me right up(!)”

“Look,” she said, feeling responsible for the event that had led to the rawness of his emotions, “I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to fight. I’m just... worried about you.”

Giles gave her a miserable, apologetic look, then busied his eyes and hands with the ritualistic cleaning of his glasses. “I’m sorry, Buffy,” he apologized, “I don’t mean to... snap at you. God knows you’re going through... all of this as much as I am.” He paused and forced himself to look her in the eye. “But let me come to the point,” he said, “before I lose my nerve. About... last night: I don’t really know how to ask you this, but... you haven’t... told anyone have you...about...what happened between us?”

Now it was Buffy’s turn to look pointedly away. “Willow knows,” she admitted, gazing with apparent interest down at her folded hands in her lap. “But, I swear to you,” she continued, trying harder to maintain eye contact, “I won’t tell anyone else and neither will she.”

“Well,” Giles responded, unable to keep a slightly corrective note out of his voice, “I wish you hadn’t told anyone at all, but I suppose you have to confide in someone, and I have every confidence that Willow can be trusted, if anyone can. “Look, Buffy,” he went on, sounding less pedantic, though no less strained, “I feel like a right bastard asking you to keep a secret like this. Unfortunately, the State of California, not to mention the INS, takes this erm... sort of thing fairly seriously.”

“This sort of thing,” Buffy repeated quietly, not much liking the sound of it.

Giles sighed heavily, “I am a right bastard, by the way,” he informed her with a small, sad smile, “just so you know.”Buffy laughed nervously, not sure if he was joking. “Buffy,” he resumed, sounding gently serious, “there are other things we need to discuss about last night besides...erm information security.”

“Yes, there are,” she agreed, her stomach flip-flopping sickeningly at the thought of what she had to say next.

“Buffy,” Giles went on, “you know I’m a very serious person. I very rarely act purely on impulse—”

“Yeah, I know,” Buffy began, “and—”

“Please, Buffy,” Giles cut in, “let me finish. I know—despite any remarks I may have made in the past about your youth or your...comportment—I know that you are a very serious person too, a very... honorable person, and I deeply, deeply respect that—”

“Giles,” Buffy interrupted more forcefully, unwilling to let him climb any further out onto the limb, “I’m not in love with you.”

“Oh good lord, that’s a relief!” Giles gasped, breaking into a sheepish smile.

Buffy felt an unexpected stab of resentment. “It is?” she asked, baffled.

Giles sighed, “Oh Buffy, I _do_ love you, very, very much, but not... I’m not _romantically_ in love with you, and, well, after last night... I was worried that...well... considering everything that was said and...done between us... I couldn’t stand the thought of... of breaking your heart... on top of everything else.”

“Oh,” said Buffy not sure what else to say. So she guessed that answered her question from last night. When a man said, ‘I love you’ before, during or after sex, apparently, it didn’t mean a damned thing. It bothered her, more than she would have liked to admit, but she was not about to make a fool out of herself in Giles’ eyes by childishly demanding that he feel something that she herself denied feeling.

“So,” she said after a long moment, forcing a smile and a light tone, trying to keep the conversation from stalling, “how do two serious, honorable people, who aren’t in love with each other, end up having spectacularly illegal and dangerous sex, under ridiculously uncomfortable conditions? Temporary insanity?”

Giles shook his head. “I don’t know Buffy,” he said quietly, seriously. “For my part, I can tell you that I needed... someone... in that way. At the same time, I needed you, specifically you, in a completely different way, and just when I needed you, there you were. With all the... emotion of last night... I think everything I was feeling got... mixed together.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, “I think pretty much the same thing happened to me.” Yet, although his answer was exactly the one she had been giving herself all night and all morning, suddenly, she was less sure that it was true. The truth was, she _was_ disappointed to hear that Giles was not in love with her, surprisingly, deeply so.

“And of course,” he reminded her, completely kidding now, clearly sincerely relieved, “there is also the fact that I am a right bastard.”

“A valid point,”Buffy intoned with mock solemnity, feeling slightly mollified, trying to get to happily relieved. Of course, she realized, one of the reasons for her continued anxiety had little to do with romantic love or the lack of same. Swallowing hard, she decided to tackle the elephant in the room head on. “Giles,” she said, squirming uncomfortably, “there is still one thing we need to discuss.”

“At least,” he agreed, smiling nervously, “but please, go on.” He gave her a look of steady, patient attention, waiting for her to speak.

Buffy felt suddenly shy, foolish, out of her depth. “Giles,” she blurted out, becoming red in the face, “what do you know about, birth control and.. stuff like that, because I’m not, you know, on the pill or anything, and I don’t know if it’s too late to, you know, _do_ anything about that.”

“Oh good lord!” Giles nearly choked.

“Hey, yeah, no,” Buffy stammered, coloring even more deeply, “It’s a stu—stupid question. Forget I mentioned it...”

“No, Buffy,” Giles reassured her earnestly, “It’s not. I just feel such a fool for not thinking of this...erm... potentiality before now. All of this just seems so...unreal.”

“So,” Buffy persisted, “do you know of anything I can do at this point?”

“Well, I have to confess,” Giles murmured, “I’m not quite sure. I haven’t had... this sort of erm... situation come up since...” Buffy gave him a look that said she really, really didn’t want to know. “...well... for many years now,” he concluded.

“So,” Buffy interpreted, rankled, “you don’t know anything relevant to, you know, modern times.”That got a look of mild exasperation from Giles in return. The display of mutual annoyance between them felt comfortingly familiar.

“I’ve heard of emergency contraceptives, of course,” he acknowledged. “From what I understand, they’re quite widely available in Europe. They call it the morning after pill. But I don’t really know what the availability is in this country. I’m sure it’s not as easy as popping round to the corner chemist shop. I’m also not sure what the time-frame is, other than short.”

“Well,that’s more than I knew,” Buffy assured him. “But,” she added, “Willow is in full research mode, so hopefully we’ll know more soon.”

Giles looked uncomfortable at the mention of Willow’s involvement in this research project, but said only, “Yes, erm, well it’s good to know you have a plan, as usual. I ought to tell you more often how... impressed I am with your ability to deal with a crisis.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, “I’m great in a crisis. Now if I could only get a little better at the not-causing-a-crisis-in-the-first-place.”

Giles smiled with affection and amusement. “Well, when you learn the secret to that, please let me know. I’d like to try it myself.”

 ****

Willow shut off her laptop, lay back on her bed among dozens of scattered books and journals and sighed. After five hours of wading through scores of popular news articles that couldn’t use the same scientific term twice to mean the same thing and dozens of scientific journal articles that couldn’t be bothered to explain anything a seasoned veteran in the field should already know, she had a lot of information, but few answers. She had learned that there was a veritable cornucopia of emergency contraceptive products on the market in Europe and that the media found it much more interesting to talk about the political and social implications of this than to discuss what they were made of and how they worked. The scientific journals explained that in great detail, that is, if you already knew practically everything about how traditional hormonal contraceptives worked. Willow knew in general what was involved, but it would take her three days to read up on everything she needed to know to fully understand what she was reading now.

The one thing she understood most keenly, however, was that she did not have three days, or rather, Buffy didn’t. Whatever kind of pills you took had to be taken within 72 hours at the very latest. 48 hours was better. As soon as possible was best. Buffy and Giles had had sex nearly 18 hours ago, and she was not even close to the kind of solid information that would tell her how many of which pills Buffy needed to take. If they had actually been in Europe, this wouldn’t have been a problem. Buffy could have bought a packet of pills at a pharmacy and followed the directions on the label. In the United States, however, pharmacies didn’t carry emergency contraceptives designed and labeled for that use. A doctor was needed to examine the patient and write a prescription. That would have meant involving Joyce, not to mention the difficulty of being seen on a weekend.

Of course, with two doctors in the house, Willow knew that she could get her hands on a prescription pad. The problem was, she wouldn’t know what to prescribe, or how much. It was clear from what she had already read that the active ingredients were the same as in traditional birth control pills and that different dosages of the same pills were sometimes used for both purposes. The problem was, there were dozens of different formulations on the market and dozens of different names for the same formulations. The names were different from country to country and changed from year to year. In one study she had read, participants were treated with two pills of some combination of estrogen and progesterone, then the same thing twelve hours later, four times the daily dose for that brand. In another, there were five pills in each dose, for a total of ten times the daily dose. Nor did the number of milligrams of each hormone in each tablet entirely settle the matter, because different brands used different synthetic hormones of each type, which were metabolized differently.

Finally, Willow realized, although she didn’t yet know the answers, she had found the questions. One: what was the name and normally prescribed dosage of a commonly available birth control pill that could also be used for emergency contraception? Two: how many pills made a dose for that purpose? Three: how many doses were needed and at what intervals? Once she knew the questions, she realized that the simplest, fastest way to get the answers was also the riskiest: ask one of the thousands of medical professions, such as her parents, who already knew.

Willow wished for the millionth time this afternoon that Buffy would contact her. As if in answer to her wish, the doorbell rang. It was Buffy. If only she had wished for the pills and instructions she needed, thought Willow wryly. “Well?”asked Buffy anxiously as she hurried inside, “did you find anything?” There was an odor about her that said she had been indulging in a little daytime sewer hunting, a good strategy for temporary stress relief, if you didn’t mind the high risk of being permanently killed.

Willow tried, unsuccessfully, to smile. “I’m making progress,” she said, “but time is ticking. I know that you can use regular birth control pills, but I’m still working on how much of what kind to use.”

“Wow,” Buffy said, “good work.” Then, pensively, she added, “What is the time frame, anyway?”

“72 hours,” said Willow. “Which is now ...” she cast an eye towards the digital clock on the VCR,“53 ½ hours. That’s the most time we might have. Some studies say 48 hours.”

“Which really means 29 ½,” Buffy murmured, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth thoughtfully, “by tomorrow night.”

Willow nodded. “We have to get help,” she pleaded, “Even if I steal my Dad’s prescription pad, I don’t think I can figure out what to write by tomorrow night.”

Buffy was touched by Willow’s willingness to help her, even to the point of breaking the law and risking serious trouble with her parents. “We’ll figure it out,” she found herself trying to reassure her friend. “You’ve already found out more about it than Giles knew.”

Suddenly, Buffy and Willow stopped and looked each other square in the eyes. It was obvious how they were going to get the answers to their questions. Who better to ask a grownup for grown-up advice than another grownup? Giles could stroll right up to a doctor or pharmacist and casually ask them for help with a sexual problem, because men his age were supposed to be sexually active. Granted, this was probably not the kind of problem men in their forties asked about every day. Still, given the fact that these questions were being asked for his benefit as well as Buffy’s, it only made sense.

“We should call Giles,” Willow said aloud. Buffy nodded and reached for the phone next to the couch, only to be stopped by the sound of a key turning in the door. “...From your house,” Willow added.

“Agreed,” said Buffy.

Unfortunately, the short, bespectacled man who was coming through the front door made it impossible for them to get away in anything like a hurry. Ira Rosenberg was as friendly and effervescent as his wife was distant and abstracted. He ran to his daughter and caught her in a big bear hug, then held her out at arm’s length and boomed, “How is my dear Willow this fine, sunny Sabbath day?”

“I’m great, Dad,” Willow beamed back at him. Knowing that Dr. Rosenberg rarely made it home from work before 10pm, even on a Saturday and that Willow often wished desperately that he would, Buffy tried to be unobtrusive, to let them have their moment. It was not to be.

Although this was their first meeting, beyond a glimpse or two in the school parking lot, Ira jumped right in to a conversation with Buffy, apparently already in progress. “Is it a sin?” he asked in a loud, jovial voice, “to do the Lord’s work on the Lord’s day?”

“I... wouldn’t think so...” Buffy managed, taken aback.

“This new Rabbi, Rabbi Mike, he says I should close my clinic on the Sabbath. He says work is work, whatever the benefit to mankind.” Buffy smiled weakly. This seemed to be all that was required of her at this interval. “So,” Dr. Rosenberg continued, every bit as cheerfully, “I asked him, ‘Rabbi, if God made me a healer, and healing is a sacred art, what better way to keep the Sabbath holy than to use my God given talents for the benefit of my fellow man?’ Then he says to me, ‘it sounds like you’ve been reading the _Christian_ scriptures.’ So I said, ‘I’ll read anything once,’ but honestly, this young Rabbi, how did he get to be such an expert? He’s from Elmwood for Heck’s sake. He used to ride skateboards and smoke pot with my brother’s two boys. He spends ten minutes on a Kibbutz one summer and bam, anyone who has the slightest disagreement with him is suddenly a Christian.”

“Umm...” said Buffy, sneaking a look at Willow for guidance on how to react. She had never met anyone in all her life who could complain so cheerfully. He seemed positively gleeful. Although, Buffy _was_ beginning to get why Willow had been so worried about nailing crucifixes to her bedroom wall, even for the very worthy purpose of keeping out vampires.

“Dad,” said Willow, apparently coming to her rescue, “Buffy was just telling me how much she admires the neoclassical bronzes in the foyer.”

Buffy did a mental doubled take. What kind of a bail was that? Willow’s father was looking at her expectantly. Admittedly, she knew more about art than religion, but still. There was only so much you could say about moderately priced reproductions of generic neoclassical bronzes, not that she could remember any of it at the moment. “The forms are so... kinetic,”she managed, remembering that at least one of the figures had been engaged in some vaguely athletic activity.

“Well, then,” said Dr. Rosenberg brightly, “If that’s the kind of thing you like, you should see the ones in my study.”

“What a great idea!” Willow enthused, “Let’s go look at them right now!” Next to anyone but her father, she would have appeared positively manic.

“Sounds like fun,”Buffy agreed weakly, forcing a smile. Clearly this had something to do with Willow’s plans to lay her hands on her father’s prescription pad. In the service of that endeavor, Buffy managed to keep Ira engaged in a steady stream of very small talk about some fairly small and uninteresting statues for what seemed like at least an hour.

Finally, Willow emerged from somewhere outside her father’s line of sight saying, “Buffy, I think we’d better get going. The movie starts at 5:45. We don’t want to be late.”

“Oh,” said Ira excitedly, “you mean that new sci-fi flick over at the Sun Cinema? I’ve been dying to see that! We’ll all go, my treat!”

“Actually,” Buffy apologized, “It’s that new romantic comedy over at the Mall Twin.”

“Ah, yes,” Ira boomed,“I’ve been meaning to see that too. It’s the one with the girl and the guy,” he grinned,“who get into a situation in a place and then do things.”

“The very one,” Buffy confirmed grimly. She did not have time for this. She could practically feel herself ovulating.

“My _treat, and_ I’ll buy you girls dinner,” said Dr. Rosenberg, “that’s my final offer.”

Buffy had just opened her mouth, uncertain what excuse was about to come out of it, when she heard Willow say, “Thanks Dad, that’s a great idea. Buffy, isn’t that a great idea?” The look in Willow’s eyes said, _just go with it, I’ll explain later_.

The sun was low in the west. Late afternoon slipped into evening. As Ira Rosenberg pulled his late model white Lexis into the moderately crowded Mall parking lot, he felt content and more than usually cheerful. It was nice to get out for the evening, to leave work behind and to spend a little time with his daughter for once. It was nice to finally meet her charming young friend Buffy, whom she so clearly admired, and who seemed to be singlehandedly responsible for expanding her social circle to include multiple actual friends.

Ira whistled cheerfully as he stepped round to the passenger side to open the door for his daughter with an elaborate bow that made Willow giggle. Buffy let herself out of the back seat, shrugging into the lime green sweater vest she had borrowed from Willow to stave off the very slight chill of a winter evening in Southern California, and stood looking at them skeptically. Ira bowed all the more deeply. “Forgive me, dear lady,” he said with mock gravity. “I am a very old man and cannot open doors as quickly as I once could.”

“It’s totally cool,” said Buffy as cheerfully as she could manage.

“A quality to which, I assure you, I have never aspired,” Ira retorted, eyes twinkling merrily. Willow twinkled back at him. Buffy forced a weak smile. It was all she could do to keep from saying ‘whatever’ in that special way that means, ‘shut up and stop being an idiot.’ She didn’t want to be rude to Willow’s father. She knew he was in no way responsible for her tense mood. But, she _was_ in a tense mood, and his needlessly theatrical jollity annoyed her more than a little. She was beginning to have a fairly clear sense of what (or who) Willow saw in Xander.

Of course, Buffy realized, with genuine if bleak amusement, she had no room to judge anyone on the issue of all things Freudian. She let herself laugh a little, let Willow and her dad think she was laughing with them. Ira kept up a steady stream of lame jokes and Willow a corresponding stream of insipid fawning all the way through the lot and the mall and into the theater. Buffy walked a couple of paces behind them, trying to stay out of the line of comic fire. She hoped to God that Willow had brought her here for a good reason having to do with an actual plan to help her get out of this mess.

Predictably, when they got to the ticket window, there was some confusion over the fact that there was no 5:45 showing for the chick flick de jure at the Mall Twin. Buffy died a little as the good doctor cheerfully purchased three tickets for the next showing at 7:15. Finally, she managed to drag Willow away to the ladies room, enduring the inevitable bevy of jokes about the female habit of going to the bathroom in pairs. The moment she was sure they were alone in the restroom, Buffy locked the door, turned to Willow and said: “Okay, so tell me how this is all part of some amazingly brilliant plan to keep me from getting pregnant.”

“Well,” said Willow, shifting uncomfortably, “I got the prescription pad, but I need a little time to trace my dad’s signature from the indention in the paper.”

Buffy tried to suppress her annoyance, to give her friend the benefit of the doubt. “And we aren’t at my house, right now, doing that because... why exactly?” she asked.

“It’s easier to do when you have the whole pad, not just one sheet,” Willow explained. “The indentations are deeper.”

“And?” said Buffy skeptically.

“I know my dad,” Willow argued. “If he’s alone in the house too long, he’ll start _organizing_ things. If the prescription pad is missing, he won’t rest until he finds it. This way, I can keep him busy until I’m ready to put it back.”

Buffy had to admit that this made a degree of sense, but she was still convinced that more than half of the reason they were here was simply because Willow could not pass up the chance to spend time with her father. “Okay,” she said, thinking fast, “Here’s the plan. You go ahead and get started on the signature. Your Dad will start to wonder why we’re taking so long, but that’s fine, because as soon as we’ve got that done, we can go back and tell him I’m sick, and you guys can take me home. You go on to the movies with your dad, and I’ll call Giles and get him moving on the whole dosage issue, got it?”

Willow nodded, carefully drying the bathroom countertop with a paper towel before setting to work. “At least the light’s good in here,” she said, “this shouldn’t take too long.”

“Good,” said Buffy, relaxing only slightly. “I’m ready for this to be over with.”

“Um huh...” said Willow, concentrating on her work.

“I mean, my life isn’t complicated enough with my murdering vampire ex-boyfriend telling my _mom_ every last detail of how I lost my virginity?” Buffy went on, fidgeting giving way to pacing, “No, I have to go and make things _really_ interesting by sleeping with my Watcher!”

“Muh hum,” mumbled Willow, more or less encouragingly.

Buffy continued her soliloquy. “Which you’d think, at least, being a sophisticated man or the world or whatever, he’d know how to avoid... complications like this. I mean, is it just me,” Buffy asked rhetorically, pacing faster, unable to keep still, “or should Giles have already known all about this? I mean if it’s a simple has taking extra birth control pills... He lived through the sixties or whatever. How can he not know this stuff?”

“He’s a guy,” Willow pointed out distractedly, not looking up from her work. “This is girl stuff.”

“Yeah,” said Buffy, “but why is that exactly? I mean, this is his screw-up as much as it is mine, right? So why is it my job to fix it and not his?”

Three feet above their heads, concealed behind a thin layer of ceiling panels, Angel crouched in the dark and smiled. His smile got broader with every additional word of confirmation that they meant exactly what they seemed to mean. This was just too much. He never ceased to delight in the depths of human depravity or in the intimate association between loving someone and making them miserable. Thinking of the pompous, self consciously ‘good’ Rupert Giles, with his well meaning notions of duty and honor, pluming those depths and inflicting such sweet misery was deliciously amusing.

It was even more amusing given the circumstances. Dear, sweet Jenny Calendar, the damned gypsy bitch that Giles had been panting after for nearly a year, had been dead less than 24 hours. Their fumbling, bumbling, never to be consummated romance had been a comedy of errors that, even with the hindrance of a feeling human soul, Angel had been fully able to appreciate. Now her body lay cold and naked, broken and violated in a drawer in the basement morgue of Sunnydale General. After all that yearning and burning, after so much maudlin, self indulgent agonizing about love and betrayal, after his suicidally stupid tantrum at the factory last night; that the great, dignified Watcher couldn’t keep his pants zipped long enough to get his ‘one true love’ in the ground was absolutely hilarious.

On another level, Angel was also angry. The part of him that still was and would always be the fleshly descendant of a tree dwelling primate wanted to hang that meddling librarian up by his plumb bob and _explain_ to him in excruciating detail that Buffy’s depths were not his to probe. But, one advantage of being a soulless monster was that Angel truly _enjoyed_ being angry. It was nice to actually have something _against_ a potential victim. It made the whole process of anticipating, planning and consummating violence against them so much more meaningful. And if,somewhere at the core of this delightful, cold burning rage was a primal spark of hot, human pain? Well, Angel could enjoy the pain of the broken vestiges of the creature once know as Liam as much as that of any other mortal.

Right now, however, Angel was mainly focused on causing pain to Buffy. He saw in this situation enormous potential to hurt and damage her in intimate and lasting ways. If he got to punish her new paramour in the process, that was just a bonus. Buffy herself didn’t know how much danger she was in of actually conceiving the Watcher’s spawn. After more than a year of obsessing over the girl, Angel knew the rhythms of her body better than she did. He was aware of her heartbeat, her body temperature, every drop of blood that she had ever shed. He also remembered a world she had no inkling of, a world in which men and women lived in constant dread of procreative forces over which they had little control. If he had had to wager on the odds of Buffy conceiving on the basis of his knowledge of those processes and his sense of the perversity of fate, he would have bet even money. Even if that possibility didn’t pan out, he wouldn’t mind causing her a few weeks of anxiety over the prospect.

Silently, Angel crept along the ceiling beams, into the space above the adjoining men’s restroom. It was clear that his enemies were in a race against time. All he had to do to hurt them was to slow them down. As usual, he knew just what to do to keep Buffy too busy to make other plans.

Ira waited fifteen minutes. His good mood was waning a little. If there was one thing he hated to do, it was to wait, to be still. The worst feeling in the world was to feel bored. He wished he’d asked the girls what they wanted to eat before they’d gone scampering off to reapply their make up from the foundation up. He could have just gone to the food court, picked something and ordered for everyone, but that’s what Sheila would have called ‘disempowering male presumption.’ Besides, at the rate things were going, the food might get cold before the girls returned. He also had no way of letting them know where he had gone, though surely they were smart enough to figure it out. He walked over to the restroom area, resisting the temptation to knock on the ladies’ room door and ask if everything was all right. As long as he wasn’t doing anything else, decided to go to the men’s room.

Hanging like a bat inside the ceiling of the men’s room of the Mall Twin Theater, Angel peered down through a gap in the panels less than an inch wide. His unseen expression had become more serious. Minutes were ticking. For his plan to work, he had to find a victim before Buffy and Willow finished _their_ work and left the rest room. He didn’t dare strike in the lobby, or in the Mall proper, where the last rays of the setting sun would still be streaming through the glass doors, windows and skylights. Even indirect rays, though unlikely to kill a vampire, tended to sap his strength pretty quickly. In a fight with Buffy, that would amount to the same thing.

Not for the first time, he wished he had Spike’s high tolerance to sunlight. That yellow haired bastard could soak up indirect rays like they were moonbeams. He knew it too, the cocky little punk. Even with his useless scorched and twisted legs, Spike thought he was Angel’s better. He’d forgotten his place in the pecking order since Angel had been away. Drusilla, never a good disciplinarian, had let him act the part of the sire for too long. He even had the balls to question Angel’s priorities in focusing the group’s energies on the systematic destruction of Buffy Summers. Well, Daddy was home now, and he would have order in his house. Angel, not Spike, would set the agenda. He had set himself a goal of completely breaking Buffy before he killed her and that was what he was going to do. Spike would learn to take orders and like it.

Of course, that was all predicated on the assumption that his plans for tormenting Buffy could actually be put into action. Angel was tired of waiting. He was getting just about desperate enough to contemplate snatching Willow through the ceiling of the ladies’ room, when his next meal finally came strolling in, humming obliviously. As he sized up his hapless victim, a broad grin spread across Angel’s face once more. This was too good to be true. The poor innocent fool who had stumbled across his path was Willow’s father, Dr. Ira Rosenberg.

He waited until Rosenberg was as far off his guard as he was likely to be, standing before the urinal with his dick in his hands. Suddenly, Angel dove through the ceiling in full vamp face, lunging directly at the side of Rosenberg’s head, at an angle calculated to produce maximum terror. His efforts were rewarded with a satisfying scream, sure to bring Buffy, Willow and half the theater running. Collapsing atop his prey, Angel sank in his fangs and quickly slurped down at least a pint of blood. Ira’s frightened heartbeat, his warm body, his ardent but feeble struggling to break free, filled Angel with a joyful longing that was both lust and hunger yet somehow also akin to love. He had to remind himself not to be distracted, not to surrender too much to the moment. Buffy was coming.

Jumping to his feet, Angel jerked Ira up by the collar, threw him through the hole in the ceiling and leapt after him, just in time to hear Buffy and Willow bursting through the bathroom door in defiance of a security guard’s shouted order to stay back. Angel didn’t dare to waist a moment listening to the commotion below. Herding Ira before him like a dog nipping at the heels of a frightened sheep, he headed towards the duct system that would lead them down to the basement where they could disappear into the sewers.

Intentionally or unintentionally, Ira leapt with all his weight onto a soft expanse of ceiling panels between two beams. If it weren’t for Angel’s superhuman reflexes, he would have fallen down into the lobby below. As it was, the vampire lunged to grab his prey with both hands, nearly falling through the ceiling himself. Tucking Ira under one arm, he used his remaining hand to regain his balance. “Nice try Rosenberg,” he snarled, pausing to take another quick drink. “Just for that,” he fumed at his pitifully mewling victim, “I’m not going to kill you all the way.” Angel smiled like a shark, eyes and bloody teeth glittering in the semi-darkness. “I’m going to leave you for Buffy.”

As Buffy scuttled nimbly along the beams inside the ceiling of the Mall Twin, she was focused, energized, fueled by cold hatred that left no room for anger, fear or uncertainty. Angel had to be stopped. Dr. Rosenberg had to be saved, but most importantly, Angel had to die. Suddenly, she heard scuffling and snarling only a few yards away. The darkness ahead of her got a little lighter. No more than twenty feet in front of her Angel and Dr. Rosenberg were silhouetted by a dim glow that Buffy now realized was coming from a hole where they had nearly fallen through to the lobby. Angel was biting Dr. Rosenberg savagely on the side of the head, punishing him, she supposed for his near escape.

During the quarter minute or so that Angel stopped to savage Willow’s father, Buffy closed most of the distance between them, but she was still not within lunging distance in these tight quarters when Angel scrambled across the gap, dragging his now limp hostage after him. Buffy stopped short. At five foot almost two, she could not simply lie across the hole and grab the beams on the other side as Angel had done, and she had no room to build momentum to leap over it. Instead, she hung from a rafter and swung across, losing nearly half a minute in the process. Now more than thirty feet away, Angel and his victim disappeared around a corner in the once again deepening darkness of the crawl space. Buffy struggled to keep pace, unable to close the distance. She more than half expected to be ambushed coming around the corner, but they were gone. She could have screamed with rage and frustration. For a moment they seemed to have literally disappeared. Then, she glimpsed the metal air duct in the near darkness.

The shaft was completely vertical and so narrow that anyone moving through it would have their arms pinned to their sides until they almost fully emerged. Going down that shaft knowing that Angel lay in wait below would be little short of suicide. Buffy looked cautiously into the opening. She felt more than saw that it was very, very deep. They were in the basement by now, Buffy realized, no doubt headed for the sewer. Not wanting to waste the time to find an existing opening, Buffy yanked aside a ceiling panel near the beam she was standing on, and swung herself down into the midst of an astonished crowd. Pushing her way through the throng, she headed for the elevator. She glimpsed Willow across the cavernous room, screaming and crying hysterically as she struggled in vain to free herself from two beefy, red faced mall cops. There was no time to render aid.

The minute she looked at the elevator buttons, Buffy knew she would need a key to get out at the basement level. Scanning the nearer reaches of the crowd, she spotted an old man in green coveralls pushing a wheeled mop bucket. There was a big loop of keys on his belt. “Sorry,” said Buffy, as she dragged her startled hostage onto the elevator, pushing the button to close the doors and discouraging would be followers with an I-will-if-I-have-to look.

“Look...um...kid,” the man stammered, bewildered as well as frightened by her ability to drag him into the elevator against his will.

“I just want the basement key,” Buffy explained. She had already pushed the button for parking one, which was as low as the box would go without the key.

“No, way!” the gray haired man replied, gaining confidence as he took in her youth and slight stature.

In less than a second the doors would open on parking one. Buffy hit the stop button and slammed the janitor against the wall with moderate force, knocking the wind out of him. Ripping the key’s from his belt and holding them in front of his face she said matter-of-factly, “Show me which key,” With a trembling finger, he silently pointed it out. Buffy slid the key into the slot and the elevator descended.“Don’t get off,” she warned, pushing the man behind her as the doors opened, “As soon as I get out, go back up.” The man nodded dumbly.

Once again, Buffy was prepared to step into an ambush, but the basement was deserted. She examined the floor and walls for signs of an access point to the sewer, certain she had no more than two or three minutes until security of some kind arrived to slow her down and complicate matters further. She spied a pile of crates that seemed to have been flung rather than stacked against the far wall. Their contents were spilled and broken. Some of the crates were smeared with blood. Shoving the crates aside, Buffy found a loose grate and lifted it up.

A thin trail of fresh blood mingled with the sewage down the tunnel leading to her left. Buffy followed it without hesitation. Adrenaline was rushing through her veins as her heart pumped almost double time. They were close. She could feel it. Running as fast as she dared in the perpetual slickness of the massive drain pipe, Buffy skidded around a corner and literally ran over Spike. “Oh God!” he cried out as she trod on his useless legs, “Please, please, Buffy, don’t hurt me.”

“What the—?” Buffy was too stunned to have a coherent thought.

“No, sod it,” he spat, scrambling into a sitting position against the wall, “just kill me already, make it quick,”

A thousand questions bubbled through Buffy’s brain, but the first to pop out of her mouth was, “where’s your wheel chair?”

“He took it, din’ he,” said Spike bitterly, “along with every other bloody thing that used to be mine.”Buffy felt an involuntary upwelling of pity for this helpless, degraded creature, but she quickly stuffed it back down. Pity was wasted on vampires. It was alien to them. And she did _not_ have time.

“Spike,” she demanded, “Where’s Angel? Which way did they go?”

Spike flashed a nasty smile at Buffy, a half second sooner than he should have. Spinning on her heels, she blocked the heavy iron bar that Angel was swinging at her head, catching it in both hands. The metal slammed into her palms so hard it made the tiny bones in her wrists vibrate, but Buffy held on and immediately began using the bar to push Angel back. Suddenly, in one smooth motion, Angel released the bar and ducked under it so that Buffy flew forward into him and he was able to catch her around the waist and roll on top of her. Without hesitation, she head butted Angel in the face and threw him backwards into Spike, who had been lolling against the wall of the tunnel with a smirk on his face watching the show.

“Watch it, Mate!” Spike snarled, scuttling backwards. The smirk was gone, but he still seemed content to watch from the sidelines.

Leaping forward, maintaining the initiative, Buffy planted her knees in Angel’s chest, slammed the iron bar down into his throat as hard as she could and held it there with both hands. She couldn’t literally choke him to death, but she got a satisfying sense that it hurt like hell. “Where’s Ira Rosenberg?” Buffy demanded.

Angel gritted his teeth, planted his hands on either side of Buffy’s and pushed upward until he could speak again. “Spike,” he snarled, “get your ass over here and help me.” Spike shrugged, vamped out and used his hands to push off from the wall and take a flying leap at the middle of Buffy’s back. Forewarned as she was, Buffy rocked forward into a hand stand on the iron bar that she still held to Angel’s throat. As she did so, she brought her feet up to catch Spike square on the chin in mid air. He crumpled in a heap onto Angel’s legs, getting several more kicks to the face for his trouble.

Buffy reached the top of her arc. Jerking hard on the iron bar, she pulled it against Angel’s chin, hard enough to break his jaw. Releasing her grip on the bar, she let her continued momentum carry her over into a complete somersault, landing squarely on her feet about two yards away from the tangled pile of vampire flesh that was Spike and Angel. Angel scrambled to his feet and kicked Spike several yards down the tunnel as Buffy pulled a stake from her sleeve and prepared to renew the attack. “Bugger this!” Spike cried as he skittered off into the depths of the sewers.

Angel looked murderously at Buffy, cradling his broken jaw in his left hand and brandishing the metal bar in his right. He stood his ground, but did not advance, definitely on the ropes, but still dangerous. Buffy considered her options. She could probably stake Angel right now. She might never get a better chance. But in doing so, she would be choosing never to learn what had become of Willow’s father. She felt she had no right to make that choice.

Feigning a direct attack to the heart, Buffy turned at the last minute and drove her stake deep into the muscle of Angel’s right arm, just above the elbow. The swift, hard, from-the-shoulder downward swing that he had been aiming at Buffy’s head more than doubled the effective force behind her stroke, driving the wood through muscles and tendons, crunching and splintering it against bones that crunched and splintered in response. Angel screamed like a scalded cat and involuntarily dropped the bar. It banged into Buffy’s back fairly hard, but not hard enough to slow her down and bounced off into the darkness. Buffy continued her forward lunge without losing much momentum. Bulldozing Angel to the ground, she hopped on top of him straddling his chest. Still holding fast to the stump of her stake with her left hand, pinning Angel’s right arm to the ground, she twisted it in his mangled flesh. With her right she blocked his left handed snatch for her hair. “Where is Ira Rosenberg?” she demanded once again.

For a moment, Angel seemed to be genuinely trying to speak. Then, he shuttered with pain and stopped trying. The swelling in his jaw was only getting worse as the coloring of his bruises deepened from red to purple. Knowing Buffy as he did, he let his face slip into human form, allowing himself to look more pitiful and less threatening. He let his arms and legs go limp, giving every appearance of surrender to her mercy. Knowing Angel as she did, Buffy knew this was a tactic to soften her resolve and put her off her guard. Unfortunately, despite that knowledge, it was still working. Buffy was a fighter, not a victimizer. She found it hard to keep up a sustained assault against a limp, compliant enemy.

Digging her knees into Angel’s sides, like he was a horse, Buffy released her grip on his broken and bleeding right arm. She pulled his good left arm against his chest and held it there, at a loss as to what to do next. How the hell do you interrogate someone who can’t speak? If he couldn’t tell her what she needed to know, staking seemed to be the next logical step, but she had left her spare stake in her purse in the ladies restroom. Besides that, the longer he lay still and apparently helpless, the harder it was for Buffy to work up the fire necessary for mortal violence. Of course, Buffy tried to remind herself, Angel was not a mortal. He was a vampire. On any given night of the week, the Slayer could dispatch a random vampire without losing her train of thought about her next shopping excursion. She could and did laugh and joke as they died. But with Angel, it was different. She didn’t love the monster that he was, but she still loved the man, or semi-man, that he had been. The sight of his battered flesh lying prone beneath her was anything but funny. As heart sick as she was with deep, abiding horror and bitter regret at what he had done, she still found it hard to strike a killing blow.

“Buh—uhn” Angel tried to speak but managed little more than a grunt of pain.

“Is Dr. Rosenberg alive?” Buffy asked, more gently than she wanted to. Angel nodded painfully.“Is he nearby?”Angel hesitated. Buffy kneed him hard in both sides. “Is he nearby?” she demanded more sharply. Angel nodded.“Back towards the Mall access?” Buffy guessed. Angel shook his head feebly, then cocked it in the direction that they had been traveling, deeper into the sewers. Rage welled up in Buffy once again. “You gave him to Drusilla!” She accused. Angel couldn’t smile, but his eyes twinkled.

“Not _just_ Drusilla,” said an unfamiliar voice from the tunnel ahead. A chorus of laughter followed as no less than a half dozen vampires stepped from the shadows. Spike had gone for help after all. While his minions advanced rapidly, Angel freed his good left arm and made a grab for Buffy’s throat. As she sprung to her feet, still astride Angel’s chest, he rolled to the right, trying to knock her off balance. Instead, he rolled onto his stricken arm, sending pain shooting through his body. As Angel lay writhing on the floor of the tunnel, Buffy sprang backward, putting him between her and the advancing gang of vamps. For the next few seconds, they would either have to stop and help Angel or stagger over him one or two at a time, which would have been a great set up if only Buffy had a stake. Or a sword she amended, seeing a glint of metal in the hand of a large vamp, who was indeed advancing over the body of his fallen master while others stopped to help him to his feet.

Predictably, the sword wielder lunged straight for Buffy’s mid section. Leaping above his stroke, Buffy kicked him in the face and brought both feet down on his arm. Grazing her shoulder on the curved ceiling of the sewer tunnel, Buffy collapsed in a heap on top of her attacker, but the sword was thrown free as she had planned. It landed perhaps three feet from the spot where Angel had once lain and from which three vampires were now gathering themselves for an advance while the other two helped Angel down the tunnel. Buffy, lunged for the sword despite the risks, just as her first attacker, recovered himself enough to grab hold of her right leg and bite down. Kicking him hard with her left, Buffy forced his fangs from her flesh, ripping great gashes down the side of her calf. She fell on her chest against the floor of the tunnel hard enough to knock the wind out of her, but hers was the first hand to close on the hilt of the sword, which she brought up directly into the face of her nearest competitor. The young, female vampire staggered back, bleeding and screaming. The two who had been advancing behind her pulled up short to keep from stumbling over her. The vampire behind Buffy made another desperate grab for her legs, to keep her on the ground, but she swung her upper body in a smooth arc, severing his clinging hands above the wrists. Kicking the severed hands aside, she sprang to her feet and decapitated her cringing foe.

Surrounded by a haze of vampire dust, the Slayer rounded on the companions of her slain enemy, brandishing the fatal sword. Slowly, she let a wicked smile spread across her lips. The remaining vampires turned and fled. Buffy sagged. The smile melted from her face, leaving it a mask of pain and anguish. Leaning on her sword for support, she took off Willow’s sweater and tied it as tight as she could round her bleeding leg. Her makeshift bandage was infused with sewer slime, but there was no other way to control the bleeding. Despite her leg wound and the slippery walking surface, Buffy made her way back towards the theater at a fairly good clip. She was in no shape to hang around and see if the vamps would come back with reinforcements.

She moved quickly and quietly, uttering an unbroken string of curses only in her mind. Willow’s father was undoubtedly dead or dying. It was almost too much to hope that Angel and company would show him the mercy of letting him stay dead. Yet, once again, Buffy had had the murdering demon within her grasp and failed to summon the will to bring an end to him. Once again, she had been weak. She had been stupid. She had been sentimental. She had let Angel get away.

 

 


	3. In Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wounded and on the run after her confrontation with Angel and Willow's arrest, Buffy turns to Giles for help, but neither Angel nor the authorities are through making her life difficult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: A Thing That Happened

Rupert was startled from a dead sleep by the ear splitting sound of alarm bells. He rolled over and hit the floor, by way of the coffee table. Bloody hell it hurt. But that wasn’t the main reason his head was pounding. For a moment he struggled to understand why he was lying on his living room floor, or couch for that matter. Then, like a nightmare, the events of the past couple of days came rushing back. Unfortunately, he had not drunk enough or been hit on the head hard enough to leave any significant gaps in his memory though time was a bit of a blur. He had no idea when he had gone to sleep or for how long, but it was dark now, so he presumed it was Saturday night. He was still wearing most of the suit of clothes he had put on before work Friday morning.

When the phone refused to stop ringing, he had a strong impulse to hurl it across the room. He picked up the receiver instead, on the theory that persistence was an indication of importance. “Hello?” he murmured resignedly, more or less expecting the police.

It was Buffy. “Giles,” she cried, “You have to come get me! I’m in big trouble.”

“Where are you?” Giles asked, suddenly alert.

“The outside payphone at the gas station behind the mall,” Buffy responded hurriedly. “I can’t wait long. I’m wounded and the police are looking for me.”

“I’ll be right there,” Giles assured her resolutely. Replacing the phone on the receiver, he paused only long enough to grab his car keys from the hook by the door.

His dashboard clock told him it was only a little after seven pm when he pulled up behind the station, though it felt like midnight at least. Emerging from the shadow of the small, squat building that held the station’s restrooms, Buffy limped to the passenger door and got in. “Thank God,” she gasped as Giles quickly pulled the Citron back onto the street.

“What happened?” Giles asked, his voice full of concern.

“Angel,” said Buffy bitterly. “He got Willow’s father. Snatched him right through the ceiling of the men’s room at the mall.”

“Good lord!”

“Took him down through the duct work. I caught up with them in the sewer, but there were too many of them. Eight counting Spike. I only managed to dust one. The one that bit my leg. I broke Angel’s jaw though, I’m pretty sure. And his arm.”

“Well, A for effort,” said Giles with grim amusement, “But, why are the police after you? And where is Willow?”

“The cops got her,” Buffy said matter-of-factly, skipping ahead to the second question.

“Bloody hell!” Giles cursed. “For what, exactly.”

“Apparently” Buffy explained, “they think we’re part of some kind of illegal pharmaceutical ring and that we had Dr. Rosenberg kidnapped when he caught us stealing his prescription pad.”

“God in heaven,” Giles gasped, instantly realizing exactly how that nonsensical conclusion made perfect sense of two set of clues that must have present themselves to the Sunnydale PD as pieces of a single puzzle.

“We were forging a scrip in the ladies room when we heard the screaming,” Buffy explained, confirming his suspicions. “I heard the mall cops talking in the parking lot when I came back up through the manhole on Birchwood. They found the pad in the bathroom along with our purses, and I.D.s, and stakes, and crosses, and vials of holy water, and my hunting knife, and my just-in-case silver stiletto, because you never know what you might have to kill with something silver.”

“This all my fault,” Giles fretted.

“All _our_ fault,” Buffy corrected him. “So what do we do about it?”

Giles sighed and took one hand off the wheel to rub his temples, which he found to be somewhat less relaxing when done without closing one’s eyes. “I need to think,” he said.

“We could go to your apartment,” Buffy suggested.

“Oh, no,” Giles countered earnestly, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“I promise to control myself,” said Buffy dryly.

Giles made a nervous sound between a cough and a laugh. “If the police are looking for you,” he clarified, “You probably shouldn’t be hanging around an active crime scene.”

Buffy had to admit he had a point. “Well we can’t go to my house,” She pointed out, more for something to say than because there was any thought of going there, “or Willow’s, so where does that leave? School?”

Giles was honestly choking now, so much so that Buffy had to slap him on the back. For an instant she had a horrifying future flash of the two of them trapped in a long dead marriage that would eventually involve her feeding him strained peas and wiping the stipple from his chin with the edge of his bib while their deadbeat college dropout son stayed holed-up in the garage all day summoning demons and listening to death metal.

“Lord no,” Giles gasped as soon as he could draw breath.

“That’s one of the first places they’d look,” Buffy agreed.

“Not only that,” Giles pointed out, “If they found us there together...”

Buffy sighed. There was no point suggesting Xander’s place, or Oz’s or even Cordelia’s, all for the same reason. “Vegas it is then,” she said with a wan smile.

“Of course,” Giles laughed along with her. “We can open that office supply warehouse you’ve always dreamed about.”Buffy felt a sudden pang of heartache remembering the morning she had told Giles about that silly dream and another, much darker one. It was hard to believe that less than six weeks ago Angel’s death had been her greatest fear. If only that nightmare had come true in its entirety. At least then Angel would have died with his soul intact. Sensing Buffy’s feelings and the obvious reason for them, Giles silently chastised himself for his insensitivity.

They were nearing the point at which they would have to turn off Sunnydale’s main thoroughfare to go anywhere but out of town. Giles made a decision. “All we really need is light and water,” he said aloud. “I have my first aid kit in the trunk. There’re a dozen motels out on the highway just the other side of Fondren. They know you don’t drive, so if we’re lucky, there might not be road blocks.”

For once, they _were_ lucky. It was not yet eight o’clock when Giles pulled up to the Pacific Coast Motor Lodge. Buffy waited in the car while he went into the lobby to pay for the room and get the keys. He silently handed them over without looking at her as he got back behind the wheel and pulled the car around behind the building. Buffy blushed unnoticed in the merciful darkness of the parking lot. It was such a caricature of a seedy motel tryst that, if not for the events of the previous night, she would have been amused by it. Or maybe a little grossed out to be honest. But for better or for worse, that was one thing had changed forever in Buffy’s mind. Though she might feel guilt and shame at the thought of Giles caressing her body, she simply could not work herself up to feeling physically repulsed by him. She now knew what was under those layers of tweed: the toned, attractive body of a vital, passionate man.

“Here we are, 247,” Giles said, pulling into the space so marked. Buffy groaned, looking at the key for confirmation that they were in fact on the second floor. “There wasn’t anything on the first floor except a one queen suite,” he explained apologetically. “Wait there,” he added, “I’ll help you.”

For the sake of pride, Buffy managed to get her own door open and get out while Giles was occupied with retrieving his first aid kit (a substantial looking metal case) from the trunk of the car. Her leg felt even weaker, and even more hot and swollen, than it had less than an hour earlier in Sunnydale. She leaned against the car and waited for Giles to come and help her up the stairs, pride notwithstanding. Holding the kit in his left hand, Giles wrapped the same arm around Buffy’s waist, instructing her to put her right arm over his shoulders. That left them each with a steady leg on the outside and a free hand on the rails as they made their way up the narrow metal staircase that clung to the side of the painted cinderblock motel. With a tiny twinge of resentment, outweighed by gratitude, Buffy leaned into Giles’ embrace, allowing him to bear the bulk of her weight.

She couldn’t tell how much of her raised heart rate, flushed face and breathlessness was due to the effort of climbing with an injured leg versus being this close to Giles again knowing him as she now did. What she could tell, in the light from the bare bulb above the motel room door, was that he was as flushed and breathless as she was. Pressed against his left side, she could feel his heart hammering. She could also tell that he looked like he’d been through hell, more or less literally. Though he had made an effort at washing his face and hands since she’d last seen him, there was still ash in his hair and a sooty streak behind one ear. His rumpled tweed pants and filthy oxford shirt, unbuttoned over a relatively less filthy T-shirt, stank of smoke, gasoline and sweat. There was a coarse layer of stubble over his cheeks and chin.

“You look like hell,” she heard herself saying, too tired to think of a more tactful way to voice her concern.

Giles smiled with good-natured amusement, taking the comment in the spirit it was intended. “Look who’s talking,” he pointed out.

Buffy half grinned, half grimaced. “You should see the other guy,” she replied dutifully. There was something a little bit cruel about the smile that stole over Giles features in response to that remark, though not unwarrantedly so. He paused to unlock the door and supported Buffy across the threshold.

The light was better on the inside. As Giles helped Buffy to a seat on the edge of one of the two double beds, he could see that the garment knotted around her right leg was caked with blood and sewage. He knelt next to her and unwrapped it, exposing an angry mass of scabbing, swelling and bruising, which on anyone else would have indicated a wound two days old. The main difference was that if her wound had been two days old, it would already be badly infected. Her skin was streaked with dried sewer sludge, which could only mean that there was similar material festering beneath the scabs as well. They needed to be cleaned, scraped off, cleaned again, treated with an anti-bacterial agent and bandaged up.

“Right then,” he said to himself as much as to Buffy, “I think we’d better start in the shower.”Buffy gave him a pointed, questioning look, or at least he imagined that she did. Flustered and annoyed with himself for being so, he added, “by which I mean you, of course... erm...solo as it were,”

“Thank you for clearing that up,” said Buffy sarcastically.

“Yes, right, well, do you think you can stay on your feet in the shower?” He asked briskly. He wanted to explain that he _hadn’t_ been thinking anything inappropriate he had only been concerned that she might think that he was, but that seemed like a lost cause.

“I’ll manage,” Buffy replied with a rueful smile. She hobbled to the bathroom and closed the door.

Giles sat down on the end of the bed and gave his temples a good, closed-eyed rubbing at last. He wasn’t all that worried about Buffy’s injuries. He had everything he needed to take care of them in his first aid kit, and he was sure, that with her Slayer’s healing power she’d be alright in a day or so. He would have liked to have been worried about Dr. Rosenberg, but his fate was certain enough to be a non-issue for planning purposes. What most urgently needed dealing with was Buffy’s and Willow’s trouble with the police. If they were suspected in Dr. Rosenberg’s disappearance or death, it would not be a good idea for Buffy to show her face in Sunnydale, but if she were only being sought as a witness, hiding would create unwarranted suspicion. As for the business with the prescription pad, it seemed like an unfortunate but manageable juvenile incident. Then again, this was America, and in a roundabout way there were, or would have been, drugs involved.

“Well,” he murmured to himself, “you’ve really done it now, Rupert, you stupid bastard.” Willow had a first rate mind and she deserved a first rate future. Just imagining the possibility that she might lose any educational or profession opportunities because of her misguided attempt to help Buffy out of a fix _he_ had gotten her into made Giles ill with regret. He had always known that, on some level, by allowing Buffy’s friends to become involved in her work, he was putting them in danger physically. He had never thought that he was putting them in any _moral_ danger. At the moment, he was at a loss to explain, even to himself, how either of those things was acceptable.

Nevertheless, he didn’t have time to wallow in regret. He needed to find out what the police were thinking without alerting them that he was essentially hiding Buffy. He also needed to know what Willow had told them. She and Buffy were both entirely too honest to ever be good liars. Willow’s rapid, high pitched, nervous squeaking would leave anyone suspicious. Buffy would need to learn and practice exactly what the story was in order to avoid adlibbing ridiculous and contradictory details as she was so want to do. At this point however, he didn’t even know if Willow was still being held by the police. Of course, he realized, he knew exactly who would know, if anyone did.

“Hello!” Xander half shouted, picking up in the middle of the first ring.

“Thank God your home,” said Giles

“Giles, where are you?” Xander demanded, “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour. Buffy’s missing.”

“Xander—” Giles tried to interrupt.

“Willow’s been _arrested_ ,” he went on incredulously.“They actually found her dad dead in a ditch, and that was literally!”

“I know—”Giles tried again.

“Everyone’s freaking out!”Xander continued, his voice rising in pitch and volume. “Buffy’s mom, my mom, Willow’s mom. _Oz_ is freaking out, Giles. This is new and it is not good!”

“Xander!” Giles shouted. “Calm down! Buffy is with me. We’re... in a safe place. Is Willow still being held by the police?”

“Yeah,” said Xander, seeming a little more steady, “It’s just, it’s too much. You have to help sort this out. I mean Willow is...Willow....”

“Xander,” Giles said in his most steadying, in-control teacherly voice, “of what, specifically, are they accusing Willow and Buffy. They don’t suspect them of committing the actual murder?”

“I don’t know. They haven’t said so. It’s more like they think they’re mixed up with whoever did it, that it’s because of them somehow... which I’m guessing is pretty much the case.”

“Yes,” Giles confirmed, “It was Angel and his gang.”

“Please,” said Xander earnestly, “tell me that demonic bastard is a pile of dust!”

“I wish I could,” said Giles sincerely. “Buffy... injured him, but he got away. She’s hurt herself, but I think she’ll be alright in a day or so.”

“Oh man,” said Xander, “Why couldn’t she have killed him when we had the rocket launcher?”

Giles smiled ruefully, wanting to say that he’d asked himself that very question, many times. Instead he said, “Was there any mention of...erm of drugs of any kind?”

“Yeah,” said Xander, “now that you mention it, but it didn’t make sense. Something about a prescription pad... I didn’t really understand it, but it was like it had something to do with sex, because my mom called Buffy and her mom a couple of sluts, then Willow’s mom argued with her for like half an hour about whether ‘slut’ is sexist.”

“Well,” Giles snarked, “it’s nice to know she hasn’t lost her sense of priorities,”

“Seriously,”said Xander, offended, “you’re gonna trash talk my best friend’s mom? Her husband just got eaten by demons. She’s in shock. I told you, she’s freaking out.”

“Your right,” said Giles, chastened, “I’m sorry. It’s just been... a very long, _very_ strange day.”

“Man! You said it!” Xander agreed.

“Xander,” Giles asked, “were you able to glean any sense of what Willow herself has told the police about what happened?”

“Yeah,” Xander acknowledged, “She told them she had no idea who took her dad or why, and that Buffy chased them, and for all she knows Buffy could be dead.”

“Good lord!” Giles breathed. “Joyce must be going mad!”

“And then some,” Xander confirmed. “She’s started a mass mom-calling chain reaction. The whole town’s out looking for Buffy, maybe the whole county.”

“Damn,” Giles swore, picturing himself in San Quentin severing twenty years for rape and kidnapping. He had to think of a way to set Joyce’s fears to rest before she organized a state wide manhunt. “Xander,” he said resolutely, “listen carefully. I want you to call Joyce and tell her you’ve heard from Buffy and she’s safe. Don’t mention my name or where we are.”

“I don’t know where you are,” Xander reminded him.

“Good,” Giles replied. “Then you won’t be tempted. Tell her Buffy’s scared to come home because she thinks the police are looking for her and she doesn’t know how much trouble she is in and that Buffy said she’d try to contact you again. Try to persuade Joyce to find out and tell you exactly what charges are being considered and what Willow has told the police. I especially want to know what she has told them about the prescription pad.”

There was a pause, then Xander said, “Say! You actually know what the deal is with that, don’t you!”

“Erm...well, yes,” Giles admitted, “I do.”

“So, give,” Xander demanded good-naturedly.

“I fear that would be betraying a confidence,” Giles hedged.

“Yeah,” retorted Xander, ruffled again, “well I fear my best friend Willow is going to jail over bullshit and you know something that could help get her out of it, so spill.”

“Well...” Giles hesitated. It really was true that he owed it to Willow to provide any information that would help her, regardless of the cost to himself. It was probably also true that what he knew would not help her but would merely confirm that she was guilty of at least one crime. “She had her father’s prescription pad...” He finally admitted, “Without his knowledge.”

“No way,” Xander retorted, “not Willow, she of the dotted Is and crossed Ts.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Giles confirmed.“It was found by the police apparently.”

“Well, I mean what did they want with it? It had to be pretty important for Willow to steal something from her own dad. It has to be some kind of demon thing, right, like a hell beast made of acne that can only be killed by Acutane or something.”

“Erm, yes, something like that I suppose,” Giles murmured.

“You suppose?” Xander challenged, smelling a rat, “What did Buffy say? Where is Buffy?”

“She... in the shower,” Giles admitted not liking where this conversation was going.

“Where _are_ you guys?” Xander demanded.

“At a motel!” Giles shouted, exasperated. “Hiding from the police until we can figure out whether or not Buffy’s about to be arrested for murder. Now are you going to help us, or shall we spend the rest of the night batting questions back and forth?”

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Xander insisted doggedly. “I don’t like it.”

“Giles!” Buffy picked that exact moment to shout, loudly enough to be heard on the other end of the line, “I’m all clean! Where do you want me, in here or on the bed?!”

“I’m coming!” he shouted back exasperated.

“Wow, already,” shouted Buffy, never one to miss a chance for a good one liner, “you haven’t even seem me naked yet.”

“Giles,” Xander demanded, “what the hell is going on?”

“You know Buffy’s sense of humor,” Giles countered, testily.

“Well this is no time for jokes,” said Xander. Coming from him it was quite a profound statement.

“I agree,” said Giles. “Buffy and Willow are in very serious trouble. You may be the only one who can help them. I’ve got to go tend to Buffy’s wounds. See what you can find out.”

“Roger that,” said Xander earnestly, and hung up to go complete his mission.

“Giles,” Buffy called “are you coming?”

“If I can bleeding say so without becoming the butt of some... adolescent sex joke!” he retorted angrily, slamming the bathroom door open.

“Alright, sorry,” said Buffy edgily, “Jeez! Somebody woke up on the wrong side of never going to bed at all this morning.”Despite that, Giles found it hard to stay angry with Buffy when confronted with the sight of her slender, diminutive, towel-wrapped form and clean-scrubbed, girlish face. Sitting on the edge of the motel tub, her injured leg stretched out on the toilet in front of her; she was the picture of youth and vulnerability. He was pierced through the heart with a mixture of tenderness and regret. Buffy needed his help, not his derision. Any man who chooses to become involved with a teenage girl, he admonished himself, has no right to complain thereafter that his companion is immature.

****

Joyce walked in through the kitchen door and glanced across the room at her answering machine. The red light flashed Zero, but she pressed play anyway. “You have no new message and... no saved messages.” The machine droned in an even, feminine monotone. Joyce stood helplessly in the middle of her kitchen, at a loss as to what to do next. She had been everywhere, talked to everyone. There was no sign of Buffy. Her heart was in her throat. Her stomach was clinched like a fist. She couldn’t take another step, or another breath without knowing what had become of her precious girl.

Mercifully, the phone rang. Joyce dove for it gratefully. “Hello?” she cried hopefully.

She heard a feeble knocking at the kitchen door, just as Xander blurted on the other end of the line, “Buffy called me, she’s okay... you know, not okay okay, but alive; anyway, she told me to call you!”

“Xander!” Joyce demanded as she walked to the back door and opened it, “Where is she?” She peered out into the night for half a second, thinking she must have imagined the knock. Then a low moaning caused her to look down...

“She wouldn’t tell me,” Xander was saying, “but she said it’s a safe place. She’s worried about what the cops want with her, I think she’s kind of freaking out what with all the murder and the horror and the death and everything.”

A man lay on Joyce’s doorstep, beaten black and blue. It was only by his dark hair and pleading eyes that she recognized him as her daughter’s one time boyfriend and recent stalker. “Angel!” she gasped. She was on the point of kneeling down. He looked badly hurt.

“Don’t let him in!” Xander shouted, his voice shrill with panic. “Don’t open the door!”

“He’s hurt,”said Joyce, stunned and confused, overwhelmed by information she was unable to process emotionally.

“He killed them!” Xander wailed. “He killed Dr. Rosenberg and Miss Calendar! Buffy told me! Please, please go inside! He’ll kill you!”

At that moment Joyce’s eyes locked with Angel’s. She looked through what should have been the windows of his soul and saw... something else. With a small scream, she jumped back across her threshold, just as he grabbed for her, his unnaturally sharp fingernails scraping her leg. Joyce slammed the door, nearly dropping the phone receiver that she held pressed between her shoulder and her ear. Angel howled with rage like a wounded animal, but he banged on the door only once or twice before thinking better of it and loping off into the night.“Xander,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath, “ _what_ is happening?”

“He killed them,” Xander repeated. “He killed them both. This time Buffy tried to stop him. They fought... I ... I think he took her somewhere, I don’t know, but she escaped, and she called me, and I guess she heard what happened to Willow and now she’s afraid to come home.”

“Oh dear lord,” Joyce gasped, it was too much to absorb. Buffy was alive, she had to remind herself. Even though she didn’t have a millisecond to enjoy the sense of relief that this news should have brought, it was something to hold on to, an anchoring in reality. Her little girl was out there somewhere needing her help.“We have to call the police,” she said to Xander.

“I don’t know...” he said, worried. This was not the result he had been asked to bring about. “Buffy thinks they think she killed him. She’s afraid—”

“Xander,” said Joyce firmly, “The police do not think Buffy killed anyone. They told me they’re looking for her because Willow said she might have been taken hostage by the killers, that she might be hurt. And anyway,” she went on, clarifying her own thoughts in the process, “This man...Angel... he has to be stopped.”

“Agreed,” said Xander, but he knew there was not a cop born who could stop him.

“Quickly,” said Joyce, “tell me everything you know.”

“I have,” Xander assured her.

“Then I’m calling the police,” she said resolutely. “If they do try to charge Buffy with something... we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The truth will come out.” Hanging up the phone, she repeated to herself, seeking reassurance in her decision, “the truth will come out.”

****

When Buffy’s wounds were cleaned and dressed, Giles put her to bed, still wearing a towel for a night dress. She went quietly, compliantly, like an obedient child. She _thanked_ him for taking care of her, for looking out for her. He wanted to weep. She was asleep almost at once, though it was no later than nine-thirty. It was a sign of just what kind of toll the day had taken on her.

He wanted very much to take a shower himself, but without any clean clothes to put on, it seemed pointless. Of course, he could wash both his and Buffy’s clothes in the sink and hang them on the shower rod to dry, but he couldn’t quite sanction the idea of he and Buffy sleeping in those two double beds, not three feet apart, each wrapped in nothing but a bath towel. Instead, he went to the sink and began to wash Buffy’s clothes, together with his Oxford shirt. At least he could do that much. The sweater he discarded. It was too far gone to do anything but contaminate the rest. He had just hung up the laundered items and was debating the merits of washing his pants when the phone rang.

It was the front desk. “Mr. _Rayne_?” the clerk asked, uncertainly.

“Yes,” Giles answered without hesitation.

“There are some—There’s um a package for you... that is a message, at the front desk.”

“Of course,” he answered smoothly, casually lifting the edge of a curtain to see that there was in fact a cruiser from the Del Bacco County Sheriff’s Department sitting in plain sight in the parking lot. “I’ll get dressed and come right down.”Hanging up the phone, he ran to Buffy and shook her awake. “We’ve got to get out of here!” he said quietly, but urgently.

“The factory’s on fire,” Buffy agreed, still more asleep than awake. Then sitting up, alert, she asked “Giles, what is it?”

“The police,” he informed her. “County Sheriffs, actually.”

“How did they know we were here?” Buffy asked.

“They must have somehow traced the phone call I made. I called Xander, while you were in the shower, to try to get some information about Willow—”

Buffy threw up her hands in exasperation. “That’s it then,” she declared, “Star 69.”

“Star... what?” Giles asked.

“They pushed a code on Xander’s phone and got the front desk.” She explained impatiently. Sometimes she could swear Giles actually cultivated his hopelessness with technology. “So let’s think; what do we do?” she asked, trying to stay focused. She started to get up, then added, “Where are my clothes?”

“I just washed them,” Giles admitted apologetically. “They’re sopping wet.” He risked another peak through the curtains, “They’re probably watching the landing,” he surmised, “I’d suggest going out the bathroom window and over the roof, but...”

“My leg’s too badly hurt,” Buffy concluded for him. “And,” she added, “I am _not_ doing that in a towel.”

“We don’t have long,” he informed her. “The front desk clerk called pretending to have a message for me, well, Ethan, actually. They’re expecting me, or him, to come right down.”

“Wait, what?” said Buffy.

Giles smiled,“I took the liberty of registering under the name Ethan Rayne.”

“Okay,” said Buffy, starting to stand up again then thinking better of it. “I can work with that. Can _you_ get down through the bathroom window and over the roof?”

Giles considered this for a beat. “Two to one I can.”

“That’s a better shot than the front door,” Buffy observed. “Okay,” she added, still thinking and speaking quickly, “Here’s what you do. Get out of here as best you can. Take the car, but ditch it when you get within walking distance of your house. When you get home, report it stolen. You didn’t see who took it, but I did, it was Ethan Rayne, when he kidnapped me.”

“No,” Giles amended, “It was Angel. He must have found Ethan’s credit card in the glove box. That way we don’t have to explain—”

“—how Angel would have gotten mixed up with Ethan. Got it,” said Buffy. She didn’t have time to worry about explaining what Ethan’s credit card was doing in Giles’ glove box. “Giles go!”He did. Buffy sat in the dark listening for the sound of Giles falling to his possible death and probable injury. Five minutes passed. It didn’t come. Instead she heard the sound of a car starting, somewhere on the other side of the motel.

A minute later, someone knocked forcefully on the door and shouted, “Police!” Buffy had just enough time to lie back so that she could start up when the door was kicked in.

“Thank God!” she cried, glad for the dimness of the room, which made it easier to fake a sense of relief and wellbeing.

“Buffy Summers?” The man asked matter-of-factly, flipping on the light with one hand while holding his gun at a polite downward angel with the other.

Buffy nodded. “Yes,” she said in a small, meek voice.

“Deputy Paulson,” the officer identified himself, “Del Bacco County Sheriff’s Department. Is there anyone else in the room with you?”

Buffy hesitated. Was she supposed to know Angel was gone or had she been asleep? “There... was,” she said haltingly. “Angel... my...ex-boyfriend. He... went into the bathroom... I think he may have gone out the window, but... I was afraid to get up and check.”

“Stay where you are,” he ordered, moving to the bathroom door, kicking it open, and sweeping the small space on the other side with the muzzle of his gun. A salt breeze wafted through the open window. After radioing the news of the suspects escape to unseen colleagues, Paulson turned his attention back to Buffy. “You’re safe now,” he assured her, “Can you tell me what happened?”

Buffy nodded, “Angel followed us to the mall. He grabbed Willow’s father, but he was trying to get to me. I followed them to the basement to try to get him to let Dr. Rosenberg go, but they dragged us both down into the sewer—”

“Who’s they?” Paulson interrupted.

“Angel and his friends,” said Buffy.

“Those friends include Ethan Rayne?” The Deputy asked.

“Who’s that?” Buffy asked, looking down at her hands to avoid his searching gaze.

“You tell me,” the cop challenged.

“Never heard of him,” Buffy mumbled.

“So who were these friends of his then?”

“I don’t know,” Buffy insisted. “Guys. Big. Half a dozen of them... It was dark.”

“What happened to Dr. Rosenberg?” Paulson demanded.

“I don’t know,”said Buffy truthfully. “Angel left him with some of his friends. He was bleeding pretty badly. I ... tried to escape, but Angel caught me.”

“What did he want with you?”

Buffy shrugged, “Revenge? Control? Angel was obsessed with me from the minute we... broke up.”

“This Angel have a last name?” He asked skeptically.

“Not that anyone knows,” Buffy admitted.

“You dated this guy for how long?” Paulson challenged, “and you’re telling me you don’t know his last name?”

“Well, I guess it just never came up,” Buffy said, feeling the inadequacy of her story. She tried to resist the temptation to add more details in an effort to smooth it out. The more she said, the more likely she was to contradict whatever Willow had told them. But Paulson continued to stare at her, clearly unsatisfied with her reply, waiting for more. “For all I know,” Buffy rambled despite of herself, “Ethan Rayne could be his real name. Nobody knows much about Angel. The closer you try to get... that’s part of the reason we broke up I guess, that and his temper.”

“And how does the teacher fit in?”the Deputy asked, still giving her that hard, searching look.

“What tea— You mean Miss Calendar?” said Buffy, suddenly realizing that Willow herself must have gone into details that would be hard to match. She would just have to play dumb.

“Yeah. Why?” the cop asked. “Your Boyfriend kill a lot of teachers?”

“He’s _not_ my boyfriend, he’s my ex,” Buffy corrected him hotly.

Paulson shrugged, “That why you came to this motel with him, cause he’s not your boyfriend?”

“I didn’t come with him,” Buffy reminded him defiantly, genuinely affronted at his insinuations even though she was lying to him, “he kidnapped me!”Paulson shrugged.

“I want to call my mom,” Buffy said, not liking the tone of the interview. “Can she please just pick me up and take me home.”

“At this time,”Paulson said formally, “I’m taking you into protective custody as a material witness in the murders of Ira Rosenberg and Jennifer Calendar,”

“Can I at least let my mom know I’m alive?” Buffy asked plaintively.

Paulson grinned, “Who do you think called us?”

 


	4. Processing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monday morning finds everyone struggling to understand and cope with the events of the previous weekend. Buffy and Willow remain in jail while the clock continues to tick on a contraception emergency.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: A Thing That Happened

  
The cold light of an early Monday morning was filtering through the windows of the police station when, at last, Joyce was able to put her arms around her daughter and say, “Come on honey, let’s go home.” She had been at Buffy’s side almost constantly through one day and two nights of intermittently intense questionings by every law enforcement officer in Del Bacco County. Evidently, the police had finally decided that they had learned everything they could from Buffy and Willow about the murders and that they were not responsible for them in the strictest legal sense.

There had been some tense moments, especially when the California State Police had brought in one of their polygraph examiners. After repeatedly challenging Buffy on her ‘deceptive’ responses with regard to Angel, the examiner had been exasperated when she sarcastically informed him that Angel was a 240 year-old vampire who had killed literally thousands of people. When this response had registered as non-deceptive he had resigned in frustration. The girl, he opined, was too unstable to produce a valid test result. The lead detective had been livid, insisting that the results were as valid as the day was long, that Buffy’s deliberately outlandish response hadn’t been _meant_ to deceive anyone. Joyce had been forced to admit to herself that Buffy wasn’t quite as fully recovered as she had hoped from her psychotic break nearly two years ago.

Not all of the questioning had been so fruitless. The police had extracted an admission from Buffy and Willow to stealing Dr. Rosenberg’s prescription pad on the night of his death, though at first each girl had tried to claim that the transgression was hers alone. Apparently, they had had the bright idea to put _themselves_ on the Pill, avoiding any awkward conversations with parents about sex. Once their stories had been reconciled and judged to be unrelated to the murders, no more had been said about that little scheme.

Buffy was definitely lying about how she had ended up in the Pacific Coast Motor Lodge. She’d told Xander a different story than she had told the police, though his statement had apparently been vague enough to conceal that fact. She’d also told the police that Angel was with her at the motel until well past the time that Joyce had seen him at her back door. And she’d made no mention of his injuries, probably because she didn’t know about them. Clearly Angel had been gone long enough for Buffy to have left the motel if that wasn’t where she wanted to be. Joyce tried not to parse the implications of this fact too closely. It was difficult enough being forced to contradict herself on her identification of Angel. It _had_ been dark. And the man’s face _had_ been beaten badly enough to justify a misidentification. And there _were_ apparently other men associated with Angel who _might_ have been willing to attack Joyce on his say so. But she didn’t even need to see the contemptuous looks on the detectives’ faces to know that they must consider her both a fool and a liar.

Still, the worst part of the whole experience had been the two occasions when questioning had been cut off and she had been forced to ‘go home and try to get some sleep.’ Joyce couldn’t stand to leave Buffy. Whatever Buffy had done, whatever was going on in her head, she needed her mother, and there was so little that Joyce could do other than the simple act of being with her.

Now, it was with great relief that she put her arm around her child’s shoulders and began to lead her from the station at last. They were just stepping into the parking lot when two uniformed Sunnydale Police officers emerged from the station and came up briskly behind them. “Buffy Summers?” they asked, as if there could be any doubt. Both Summers women turned to face them exhausted, exasperated and more than a little apprehensive.

“What now?” Joyce demanded.

“We have a warrant,” the taller of the two officers explained, “to take Buffy Summers into juvenile custody.”

“What?” Buffy sputtered. “I already told you I didn’t—”

“On what grounds?” Joyce demanded loudly, silencing her daughter with a gesture. The shorter officer began to read out a long list of charges that included everything from forgery and theft by deception to attempted prescription drug fraud but nothing whatsoever about murder. Both women easily gathered that it was all about the prescription pad. When his partner finished, the taller officer crisply informed Buffy that she was under arrest. “But they just said I could take her home!” Joyce protested.

“Not at this time,” said the officer. “All juvenile subjects have to be taken to the Juvenile Detention Facility in Fondren for processing.”

“Then what?” Joyce demanded.

“Most likely she’ll be released into your custody. You’ll be given a court date, and you can take her home at that time. The whole process shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

“Oh, no!” Buffy protested looking panicked. “I don’t have a few hours!” Three adults stared at her. “I mean...” she fumbled, “I have to go to school! I have to... do things.”

“The only thing you have to do is come with us,” the officer said forcefully. “Do you know the way, or do you need to follow us?” he asked Joyce more kindly. Joyce knew the way.

***

Sheila hung back in the doorway of the police station, not wanting to insert herself into the situation of the Summers girl’s arrest, not wanting to exchange words with that mother of hers again. Mrs. Summers’ staunch defense of her daughter’s transparent stalling of the investigation was more than the surviving Dr. Rosenberg could take. Her own daughter’s insistence on backing up the girl’s ridiculous version of event was killing her. What could you say to a child whose misplaced loyalties were so strong that they could not be shaken, even by her own father’s death? Sheila could say nothing to her daughter, could hardly stand to look at her. She had sent her lawyer on a head to Fondren to deal with the details of Willow’s release, intending to go see Rabbi Mike about the final arrangements for her husband’s burial. Now the Summers woman was keeping her even from that, standing in the parking lot in front of God and everyone arguing with the police like the Harpy that she was.

When, at last they were gone, Sheila hurried to her silver Lexus, laid her head against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. She had to pull herself together. This was no time to start crying. Of course, she would have told anyone else under the same circumstances that crying was healthy, cathartic. But Sheila did not have time to hurt right now, let alone to heal. She had to be strong if she was going to repair what was left of her family. She had things to do.

****

Monday morning found Rupert Giles at his desk in the Sunnydale High School library even earlier than usual. Three miles away, at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery, there was a funeral in progress. He had been personally requested by the family not to attend. “There are reasons,” Jenny’s aunt had explained on the phone, “why the Councilmen and the Kalderash do not work together. Many of your enemies are also our enemies, but your ways are not our ways, your fight is not our fight, and your people are not our people.” Giles couldn’t really say he disagreed. Yet, somehow Jenny _had belonged_ to both worlds. Both had had a hand in killing her. Both sincerely mourned her. Confused though he was about his feelings for Buffy, he felt no uncertainty about Jenny. She had been the one. He was in love with her and always would be. But she would always be gone.

And that still, small voice that told him _Buffy_ was ‘the one’ too? Could the sun rise and set at the same time? It had to be some bizarre form of transference. Or a convenient self-justification for the crimes of lust. It would fade away. It would dwindle in perspective. If not, God help him. A Watcher in love with his Slayer? There was nothing poetic about that. It was worse than maudlin. It was... insoluble.

Rupert stared blankly at the desk in front of him, at the life in front of him, each filled with things to be done, neither showing him what to do. He resisted the urge to call Buffy’s home again. He had left two messages on Sunday, which were not returned. That was already at least one too many for a concerned faculty member, though perhaps his relationship with Jenny and his mentorship of Buffy were enough to explain them. One more would be suspicious by any standard. The last Xander had heard, Sunday morning, Buffy and Willow had still been detained by the police, ostensibly only for questioning. Giles was no expert in American law, but that struck him as unusual. Unless of course, despite their protestations to the contrary, the authorities were in fact attempting to extract a confession to murder from the two girls.

Giles racked his brains, trying once again to think of something he could say or do that would make their situation better and not worse. At some point, if they were in fact charged with murder on a theory that implicated them in the illegal sale of prescription drugs, his testimony as to what they were really doing with that prescription pad could be essential. In the meantime, if they were being charged with illegally forging a prescription, such a revelation would do nothing but confirm their guilt as well as his own. Nonetheless, he struggled with the fundamental injustice of the fact that Buffy, and particularly Willow, were likely to be facing charges in this whole sordid affair while he was not.

Of course, it had been a rather close escape on his part. Sturdy and serviceable though it was, his Citron was certainly not the ideal vehicle for a high speed chase. If the police were watching the front door of the motel room, it had to be assumed that they would also be watching the car associated with it in the motel registry. Instead, he had chosen to hot wire a sporty little red number parked at the far end of the building. With silent apologies to the latest victim of his weekend crime spree, he had carefully pulled out of the parking lot at a normal rate of speed, put two or three miles between himself and the motel, then headed hell for leather down the two lane blacktop to Sunnydale. Praying that it was fully insured, he’d left the stolen car in the alley behind Willy’s Bar (exactly the kind of place Angel would have frequented) wiped his prints off the doors and steering column and sprinted home through the mean back streets of Sunnydale.

As yet, his own car had not been returned to him. It had been impounded for evidence, having supposedly been involved in a kidnapping and at least one murder. Upon reflection, he realized, it would have been better if he had advised Buffy to turn herself in rather than hiding in a motel only a few miles away. The only real difference from their current situation would have been that they would be factually guilty of a few less crimes, and the story they had to sell to the police would have been somewhat less complicated.

“So you _are_ here,” said an all too familiar voice. Giles looked up into the mean little face of his inferior superior, Principal Snyder. As usual, Snyder was angered by his own incomprehension of events. “Why weren’t you at the funeral?”

“I... thought it best,” he said levelly, “under the circumstances.”

“Yes,” Snyder said nastily, “the circumstances.”Giles gazed back at him, keeping his features impassive with great effort.  “Mr. Giles,”the principal went on in his usual wary, pedantic tone, “I work very hard to maintain order in this school. Discipline. I expect every member of this faculty to set an example.”

“Well, then,” Giles retorted scornfully, “in future I shall try _not to_ find any of my fellow teachers raped and murdered in my bed. Will that be all?”

“Not even close,” Snyder assured him.

“Alright,” said Giles, nasty-sweet, “what _else_ can I help you with this morning?”

“Buffy Summers,” said Snyder viciously. “I want her out of my school. I want her out of my town.”

“Humph,” Giles sniffed, “why are you telling me this?”

“Everyone knows,” Snyder informed him, “that this whole kidnapping story is a smoke screen. That juvenile delinquent and her... partner in crime killed one of my teachers. I take that very personally.”

“I assure you,” Giles began with controlled heat, “Buffy Summers would never—”

“Don’t be a fool,” Snyder cut in. “She’s a _teenager_. Believe me, they’re capable of anything.”

“What, exactly, is the point of this conversation?” Giles demanded, exasperated.

“The point,” Snyder informed him, “is that Miss Summers should be expelled prior to being imprisoned as she so richly deserves. Unfortunately, those cowards on the school board insist on... proof.”

“Again, I ask,” said Giles, losing patience by the second, “why are you telling _me_ this?”

“Search your memory,” Snyder urged him in a slow, snaky voice. “I think you’ll find that you _do_ remember seeing your car stolen after all. I think you’ll find that Miss Summers was only too happy to be going along for the ride.”

This was too much to be endured. Slowly, Rupert drew himself up to his full height. “Let me tell you, Mr. Snyder,” he said with quiet, dignified rage, stepping around his desk to stand toe to toe and chest to eye with his puny adversary, “what I think you will find if you search _your_ memory. You will find that time and again Buffy Summers has been personally responsible for saving lives and... quelling ‘disorder’ at this school. Her efforts alone put a stop to the Parent/Teacher Night Massacre to name a single indisputable example. Each and every person in this school and in this town owes that young woman a debt that can never be repaid, and I refuse to take any part in your malignant efforts to destroy her!”

Snyder stared up at him wide-eyed, literally speechless. This was a side of the mild-mannered librarian he had never seen before.“Furthermore,” Giles continued, working himself up to a slow boil, “If I hear one word from any source of this little fantasy you have concocted about Ms. Summers’... involvement in these crimes, I will be forced to report this conversation to the highest authorities, and I _don’t_ mean the Del Bacco County School Board. I imagine both state and federal prosecutors would be interested to hear of your efforts to fabricate evidence regarding a murder that took place in _your_ school, as would the California State Board of Education!”

“This isn’t over,” Snyder fairly snarled when he had recovered himself enough to speak. Mr. Giles stared at him in steely, resolute silence. Grunting with inarticulate rage, the smaller man turned on his heels and stormed off down the hallway to his office.

Who did that pompous English prima donna think he was to speak to Snyder that way? How dare he suggest that the principal of Sunnydale High needed some teenaged outsider like Buffy Summers to help keep order in his school! Really, it confirmed what he’s suspected all along. Whatever that young vigilante had it in her head to do here in Sunnydale, Rupert Giles was in it up to his perfect hairline. Her murderous, seemingly random attacks on the towns supernatural inhabitants, her insertion of herself into matters of security at the school; all of it was clearly at his instigation. The Englishman had arrived in town not one month before the great St. Buffy. Clearly, like John the Baptist, he had come to prepare the way.

Briefly, Snyder wondered which group of well meaning interlopers they took their orders from. Gypsies, covens, the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, secret societies of every stripe all had their agents at Sunnydale High. This was thanks in no small part to that idiot Fluty, who had not had the good grace to get eaten soon enough to prevent his hiring more than two dozen new faculty to replace those who died or fled each year. Each of these groups had a slightly different, but related notion of ‘fighting evil’ here at the Mouth of Hell. But those who knew and loved Sunnydale, who understood it as Snyder did, knew that the evil here could not be fought, could not be defeated. It had to be... accommodated... balanced... controlled. Snyder understood. This was his town, his home.

No one had deeper roots in Sunnydale than Richard C. Snyder, not even the Mayor himself. Snyder’s mother was a Wilkins, granddaughter of the Founder and first cousin of the current mayor. Her mother had been a Gleaves, and the granddaughter of Josephus Du Lac, one of few known descendants through his legal, Christian wife. Some of his ancestors on his father’s side went back even deeper into the history, even prehistory, of Del Bacco County. His Snyder great-grandparents had moved to town only ninety-five years earlier, at the personal invitation of the Founder, though during the tumultuous early period of Sunnydale history they had been publicly accounted a part of the Gleaves faction. Their son Samuel Snyder, his grandfather, had shocked the whole community by taking as his wife Alesandra Delacruz, the daughter of the last powerful Mexican landowner remaining in the county. The Delacruz family had been among the earliest white settlers in California, but by Alasandra’s time they were said to be so intermarried with the native population that only their wealth prevented them from being officially classed as Indians. Some in the community even hinted that there were things in the Delacruz bloodline far wilder than Mexicans or Indians. Regardless, from Alasandra’s point of view, this was a politically savvy marriage. For Samuel, it was a financially lucrative one. She had prevented her family holdings from being bought out, burned out or stolen through baseless litigation as had happened to too many Rancheros in that part of the state. He had brought his modest family wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

The principal himself had been brought up in a modest but dignified fashion by his widowed mother after his father had bankrupted the family and drank himself to death. With the help of his Wilkins relatives, he had been able to pursue a higher education at Del Bacco State Teacher’s College, which two years after his graduation became U.C. Sunnydale. Though he had lived much of his adult life away from Sunnydale, traveling as far as Los Angeles in pursuit of his professional goals, Snyder had never forgotten where he came from. He had never wavered in his commitment to the preservation of his home town from the forces of chaos that constantly threatened its destruction.

It was clear that in the years since he’d been away, certain balls had been dropped. The powerful men of the town, those who made up the School Board, the City Council, the Chamber of Commerce, had been more focused on selfish competition than on keeping the worlds in balance. They had let important things slide, including the all important leadership position at Sunnydale High. The school was a key component of the delicate system that kept order in the town. It placed the towns youth, themselves natural agents of chaos, where they could be used to absorb the chaotic energy that welled up from the Hellmouth. It acted as a sort of damper, concentrating the madness of Hell in one place where it could be controlled. Now that Snyder was back in town, he was determined to restore order. To make sure the proverbial trains ran on time. To hammer down the nails that stuck up, starting with that sword wielding slut-bunny Buffy Summers.

****

When his anger had cooled a little Giles felt a deep sense of relief. If the School Board was refusing to consider discipline against Buffy on the grounds that they lacked proof of sufficient misconduct, it hardly seemed likely that the Prosecuting Attorney could be on the verge of charging her with murder. Sunnydale was too small and too nasty a place to suppose that all of the movers and shakers hadn’t been unofficially filled in on the progress of the investigation. Furthermore, if Snyder thought that there was even the remotest chance that he could enlist Giles in his scheme to incriminate Buffy, then the investigation had produced absolutely no indication of an intimate involvement between them. Snyder had made no mention whatsoever of seeking discipline against Willow, so it was a fair bet she too had been cleared of murder charges at the very least.

All things considered, Rupert was starting to feel guardedly optimistic about avoiding the worst consequences of his lapse in self control (for surely, he reminded himself, that was all it had really been). Reaching a hand into his jacket pocket, he fingered the tiny packet within, reassuring himself that it was still there. Surely Buffy would be released today. There was even a chance that she might come to school. Even if she didn’t, he was sure he could get the packet to her somehow. As it had been explained to him by his old friend David Pummil (a pharmacology professor at UCLA who had been in the position to ask a favor of a licensed pharmacist of his own acquaintance) he had until ten or so tonight to get Buffy what she needed. Sooner would of course be better, but tonight would, in all likelihood, be fine. It was all so simple really that he had to fight the urge to beat himself up for not going to David strait away. Of course, his instinct was always to avoid acquaintances from that period in his life. A watcher rarely wants to have contact with those who remind him of one of his fallen Slayers. Especially a Slayer who has taken her own life. Nevertheless, he had what was needed now. Soon, they would be able to put this whole unseemly incident behind them and move forward. They could go on with their sacred duties, protecting the world from the Forces of Darkness, and he could forget his daft, ridiculous notion that a little irresponsible sex was somehow a symptom of true love.

****

After stops at the synagogue and the school, Sheila drove back to her house. She sat out in the front drive for a long while not wanting to go in, dreading what she was about to do. There was no avoiding it. She entered her home and did what she had resisted doing all weekend. She entered Willow’s room. At first she assumed that the clutter of books and paper scattered on her daughter’s bedspread was nothing more than the remains of an interrupted bout of homework. But closer inspection revealed most of the texts and periodicals to be her husband’s. By in large, they dealt with human biology and/or reproductive health. So, at least the girls had been telling the truth about their reasons for stealing the prescription pad.

Or had they? Sheila took a closer look at one, then another of the articles her daughter had been reading. Each had the same, very specific, topic: the prevention of pregnancy after the fact of sexual intercourse. So, evidently, one of the two girls had been telling the truth, or almost the truth, when she said that the responsibility for the theft was hers alone. Sheila felt sure she knew which one.

****

By mid-morning, Giles had run out of useful things to do in his office. He was sitting at the front reading table, books of ancient lore spread before him, trying to distract himself by cross referencing demons described in different cultural traditions to see which might be one and the same. Suddenly, he felt himself to be the object of quiet scrutiny. He looked up into the stony face of Daniel Osborne. Oz’s eyes silently, patiently demanded an explanation. Giles was silent himself for a long moment, but there seemed to be no way around the conversation. The young man before him had a quiet resolve that would not be denied.

“Erm... how are you... this morning?” Giles began awkwardly.

“How am, I?” said Oz in a tone that those who knew him best might recognize as indignant. “I just got through teaching a class in computer science? Which is cool because apparently it gets me out of having to go to math class, for some reason? The only thing is, I got asked to do this because my girlfriend wasn’t here to get asked, I guess? Because she’s... in jail? Okay, so here’s the thing. She’s in jail, apparently, for stealing something which I know for a fact she does not need, and which, from what I’ve been told, I kind of didn’t think Buffy needed either. But, see, I don’t know for a fact about Buffy and so, for some reason, I’m kind of thinking maybe you do.”

This was followed by what Giles studiously avoided thinking of as a pregnant pause. “Well...” he finally managed. “I...really don’t know what to tell you.”

Oz’s glare intensified, forcing Giles to look down at the book in front of him. “You know,” said Oz contemplatively, and perhaps just a bit contemptuously, “Willow really looks up to you. She thinks you’re some kind of hero, some great intellectual warrior in the battle between Good and Evil. And, I don’t know, maybe you are. But from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re using her to fight your own personal battles, and putting her in harm’s way to do it. I have a real problem with that.”

“Your right,” Giles admitted, burying his face in his hands briefly then forcing himself to meet Oz’s gaze. “I should never have allowed Willow to become involved in... Buffy’s and my... personal problems. But I never dreamed that she intended anything more than... research. Not that I’m trying to blame her or justify myself in any sense,”he added quickly. “This entire... situation is... I should never have let any of this happen.”

Oz’s features betrayed the tiniest hint of grim amusement that could theoretically be called a smile. “You Brits aren’t called the kings of understatement for nothing,” he observed.

“You aren’t going to...erm... ‘slug’ me are you?” Rupert asked.

“Probably not,” said Oz thoughtfully. “I’m thinking I might bite you eventually, though, depending on how things work out.”

Giles sighed, “fair enough, I suppose.”

“Fair enough,” Oz repeated, turning and walking out of the library.

****

“I’m telling you,” Snyder insisted combatively, holding the phone receiver in a clenched fist, “that girl is directly responsible for these murders. I can feel it in my gut.”

“And I’m telling you, for the tenth time,” Sheriff Ron Wilkins countered, “Your gut isn’t going to convince the Prosecutor, R.C. He’s a Fondren man. They don’t know the score over here. They need...proof.”

“So find some,” Snyder insisted, “Make some!”

“It’s not that simple,” his cousin tried to explain. “We’re holding up the processing for her and the Rosenberg girl, dragging it out as long as we can... but every single witness who was at that theater agrees that the victim was snatched through the ceiling while both girls were standing in plain view ten feet away. Anyone who saw anything says the Summers girl looked like she was rushing in to help him, just like she told the police. Even the janitor she supposedly took hostage says he’s convinced she did what she did to try to save a life. If we don’t find someone, somewhere to say they saw something different, by tomorrow morning at the very latest, we’re going to have to let them both go.”

“What about a bail hearing?” Snyder asked hopefully. “I don’t think Joyce Summers could come up with much more than a couple of thousand dollars, short of selling her business, and I get the feeling Sheila Rosenberg would pay _not_ to have her daughter home.”

“It’d never work,” the Sheriff, insisted, exasperated. “They’re both juveniles. Neither of them has much of a prior record, that stuck anyway, and the worst charge they’re facing is a C Felony. Judge Fondren will ROR the both of them, and that’s that.”

“But,” Snyder objected, “the Summers girl is an outsider. She has no roots in the community.”

“Maybe,”Cousin Ron reminded him, “But the Rosenberg girl has roots that’d make a vampire cringe, and we both know it. Maybe it’s not the best idea in the world to make an enemy of her... or her friend.”

****

Willow sat alone on a cold metal bench in a drafty holding cell. The chill in the air was beneath her notice. There was a fist of ice in her chest, squeezing her heart. Her father was dead. Gone forever. She needed him so desperately. Needed him to wrap her in his strong, loving arms as he never would again, needed him to tell her everything would be okay. But he couldn’t, and it wouldn’t. All that was left was loss and regret. And charges. And lawyers. And Sheila.

Willow had never gotten a lot of love from her mother. It wasn’t as if the brilliant Psychiatric researcher meant to ignore the emotional needs of her only child. She just somehow never got around to meeting them. Her child, like everything else in her life, appeared to be only one more distraction from her never ending work. At least, that had been the case until two nights ago. Now, when Willow looked into her mother’s eyes, their usual haziness was replaced with the bitter clarity heretofore reserved for her ideological and academic enemies. Now Willow was the enemy. She would have given anything to be a vaguely pleasant distraction again. Well, almost anything, she reminded herself. Because, truth-be-told, Willow knew exactly what she would have to do to get back in her mother’s good graces. All she had to do was accuse Buffy of plotting with Angel to murder her father. Her integrity, her self-respect, and the life of a loyal friend; this was the price of her mother’s love. It was too high.

Integrity. What a strange, slippery thing that was. She was, at this moment, keeping a terrible secret for Buffy, lying to the police for Buffy, and for Giles. So why didn’t she feel that they were asking her to compromise her integrity? She didn’t. Not that she wasn’t angry with the both of them for putting her in this position, but at the same time she knew, as certainly as the sun rose in the East, that if she marched up to the nearest deputy and told him every single thing she knew about Buffy and Giles, when the dust settled and the pain dulled, they would still love and respect her. They had pleaded for, not demanded her silence. They knew they had no right to demand it. At the end of the day, it was her choice to protect them. At the end of the day, her conscience belonged to her and it was her choice to conceal or reveal the truth with integrity.

These were Willow’s thoughts when, suddenly, she was brought back to her physical surroundings by the ponderous sound of the heavy metal door clanging open, and there in the doorway, flanked by two guards who could never have held her without her tacit consent, stood none other than Buffy Summers.“Oh, Wil!” Buffy cried, rushing to put her arms around her friend, “Willow I’m so sorry!” Willow wanted to say that it was alright, that she forgave her, that in most respects, there was nothing to forgive, that her father’s death was Angel’s doing alone and that the decision to commit the crimes for which they were now charged had been as much hers as Buffy’s. Instead, she clung to her friend sobbing, unable to speak.

In short order, they were left alone, though a surveillance camera was clearly visible high in one corner of the room where two walls met the ceiling. They sat together on the cold bench for a while, Buffy holding Willow against her, running affectionate hands through her hair, rocking with her a just a little in a motherly, comforting way as both girls continued to weep.“I promise...” Buffy began fiercely, when the sobbing had subsided a little. “Willow, I will not rest until—”

“I know,” Willow broke in hurriedly. “Buffy, I know.” Cutting her eyes towards the camera she added, “You really, really don’t have to say it.”

Buffy nodded, getting the message. A Juvenile detention cell was no place to proclaim a vow of blood vengeance. In all probability the walls had ears as well as eyes. Squeezing Willows hand she said, “I love you Wil. That’s the main thing I want you to know.”

“I know,” Willow repeated, squeezing Buffy’s hand in return. “Believe me, Buffy, I know.”

“So,” Buffy asked, after a few more moments of companionably miserable silence, “how’s your mom holding up?”

Willow stiffened. “Oh, she’s holding up just fine,” she said bitterly. “She skipped right over denial and went straight for anger. She blames you. She blames me for not blaming you. So far, her idea of bargaining is to command me to sacrifice you to the gods of the criminal justice system.”

“Oh, Wil,” Buffy gasped, shaking her head, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Willow. “I always thought, deep down, maybe my mother didn’t really care about me that much. Now I know. I’m on my own. In a way... It just makes everything easier.”

Buffy wasn’t sure she followed. “How’s that, exactly?”

“Well,” said Willow, “I’m my own person now. I mean sure, I have to live with my mom until I get out of high school, but I don’t have to...worry any more about...pleasing her, about what she thinks of me. Now I know, and weirdly, I feel like I’ve known all along. I’m never going to please her. She’s never going to be proud of me. Because she doesn’t love me. So, it’s better to know now.”

Buffy sat in silence, looking down at her own hands in her lap. She didn’t know how to respond to this dark revelation. She felt sad for Willow, and for her mother. She honestly didn’t know whether Willow was right and there was no love there in the first place or whether the love between them had been lost, stomped out by Angel along with Ira Rosenberg’s life. Because of her. Willow began to cry softly again. Buffy felt tears welling up in her own eyes. “Well,” she said, “you can always stay over at my house, anytime you don’t feel welcome at home.”

Willow sat up a little straighter and looked miserably into her eyes. It was obvious she had something to say. Given the magnitude of the revelations so far, Buffy worried what it could be.“I...don’t think I’m going to be welcome at your house either, Buffy,” Willow explained. “The lawyer told me that my mom already talked to your mom. They’ve agreed to do their best to make sure we never see each other again.”

Buffy was stunned, not that Sheila would forbid Willow to see her, but that her own mom would agree to enforce this edict without even bothering to tell her about it. Didn’t her mom understand what Willow meant to her? She wondered what other restrictions were in store that her mother hadn’t seen fit to tell her about. “Well,” she said, trying to keep matters in perspective, “at least they can’t keep us from seeing each other at school.”

“Yeah,” said Willow, “actually, they can. Mom’s already started the paperwork to withdraw me from Sunnydale. She’s trying to pull strings with some relatives of ours to get me into Kent Preparatory School in spite of... you know the...conduct requirements.”

“Wow,” said Buffy, “she means business.”

“Yeah,” said Willow, “she does. But it doesn’t matter, I mean, what’s she going to do, lock me in my room at night?” Both girls, thought about this for a moment. “You know,” Willow said, “actually she might.”

****

In the end, Sheila decided to say nothing about the materials Willow had been reading that night. It changed nothing. The girls, both girls, had done what they’d done, regardless of whether Buffy alone was intended to benefit. Willow was as much a principal in that crime as her friend. There was no point trying to mitigate that fact. As for the more serious crimes, the murders, this evidence did little to prove that Buffy was still involved with her homicidal lover. If pressed, she could always say that she was raped, or that it had been someone else, or that the encounter had occurred before she learned of the teacher’s murder, that she had broken with Angel because of it. It changed nothing.

With an empty heart, Sheila carried the books and journals back to her husband’s study, put them away and locked the door. Mechanically, she walked down stairs, sat at the kitchen table and steeled herself to await her daughter’s return. In nine more months, Willow would be eighteen years old. Sheila knew she had only these nine months to find and seize any hope that they could ever be a family again. Absently, she ran a hand over the slight convexity of her midlife waistline, remembering nine other months more than seventeen years ago. Now as then, she wondered if nine months would be long enough to do everything she needed to do. Now as then, nine months seemed too long to live in this state of suspense, all her hopes and dreams in the balance. Now as then, she faced the future with fear of the huge, unknowable changes that were coming and wondered if, at the end of these nine months, she would truly feel like a mother.

****

“My Lord?” came a trembling voice. Angel looked up to see a quavering novice vampire before him, cowering behind his demonic face, in a perpetual state of defensive agitation.

“What?” he said testily, offended by the creatures unworthy existence.

“The Sl-sl-layer,” it stammered. “Sh-sh-she’s b-being re-released in the m-morn-ning. I w-w-was t-told t-to t-te-tell you—”

“Alright,” said Angel impatiently, “you’ve told me. Now, ge-ge-get out of my sight before I bite your sniveling tongue out.” The minion fled in a panicky scramble. Angel watched without his usual relish for witnessing the fear he’d caused. He had other things on his mind.

After nearly a century above ground, living among humans, he was used to a certain level of...creature comforts. The factory had barely met minimum standards, but squatting in a sewer? It was wearing thin. Worse still, he had to deal with the whispering: Angel had been beaten; Angel was laying low, hiding from the Slayer, afraid to leave the tunnels. Something had to be done to restore dignity to his presence, to make a real court for his followers before they began drifting away one by one or worse still, plotting against him to set another in his place, such a Spike, or Drusilla. Angel needed what every king needs, a palace. He also needed to have confrontation, and to be seen to have a confrontation, with the Slayer. Of course, if the timing worked out just right, Dr. Rosenberg should be able to help him with that.

 


	5. Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While a Flu epidemic compounds Sunnydales already sufficient evils, Buffy and Giles have a more serious medical problem to deal with, but when Oz comes to them in the midst of their troubles with an urgent mission from Willow, Buffy must break her court ordered curfew and Xander may be her only hope to avoid another arrest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part I: A Thing That Happened

Willow was not the only student absent from Sunnydale High that Tuesday morning. Xander tried to get through it by imagining that she too was home sick with the flu, that she would be back tomorrow, or the next day. But he knew better. Cordelia would be back tomorrow or the next day, joking about how even the nastiest virus could be a weight-loss blessing in disguise. Buffy would be back today or tomorrow, chafing at the conditions of her release and plotting her next throw-down with Angel. Amy would be back. Doug would be back. Snyder would be back to share his misery with everyone. But Willow wasn’t coming back to Sunnydale High. Not tomorrow. Not the next day. Not ever.

Deciding to skip his second period English class for the second time in the young week, Xander made his way to the library, looking for company in his misery. He found it. Hunkered down at the front reading table, towel over his head and shoulders, steam wafting out around his shrouded face from some kind of earthenware contraption, Rupert Giles was the poster boy for misery. “Hey man,” Xander, teased halfheartedly, “you can’t smoke that stuff in hear.”

“How very...hurmp...very ... amusing,” Giles croaked between coughs.

“Seriously, though,” Xander said with real concern, “why don’t you go home and rest? That’s what everybody else is doing.”

“Everybody else,” Giles reminded him in a hoarse whisper, “isn’t waiting for Buffy.” This was followed by another round of coughing and a deep inhalation of steam. “I have a sacred duty...” more hacking ensued. “A sacred duty....” he tried again, getting no further. “I want to make sure she’s alright.” He finished finally.

“Do you really think she’ll, come to school today?”

The librarian picked up his currently disused glasses from the table and began to clean them. Xander recognized this as a declaration of inner turmoil. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I can’t very well call her house again.”

“Yeah,” Xander agreed, “I’ve left five messages since the last time I talked to Joyce. That was Sunday morning.”

Giles sighed, which set off another round of coughing, and another sigh at the absurdity of physical illness. “I’ve left four myself,” he noted when he was able to speak again.

“Careful,” Xander warned, “next thing you know, Cordy’ll be accusing you of being in love with Buffy too.”

Giles was grateful that the strangling noise he emitted at that suggestion was masked by another fit of coughing. “Yes...” he murmured catching his breath, “erm quiet. Um, Xander? Don’t you have a erm class of some sort that you ought to be attending?”

“Not in the strictest sense,” he said with a shrug, seeing no reason why he ‘ought’ to be attending anything. Giles let it go. Between the flu and the rest of his oppressive personal troubles, he couldn’t quite work up the energy to care about Xander’s academic success or lack thereof. Both of them sat for a moment in miserable silence.

As one they looked up at the subtle sound of the library door swinging open. As one they caught their breath, hoping so see Buffy. As one they released it, disappointed at the sight of Oz.“Biology was canceled,” he explained in response to their silent questioning, “because of... biology. You guys waiting for Buffy?” Xander nodded. “Mind if I join you?” Oz asked politely, already taking a seat at the table.

“Welcome to the vigil,” said Xander.

Giles shifted uncomfortably but said, “Er... yes, of course. Be my guest.”Unless Xander was imagining things, Oz gave Giles a look. It was a brief look, a subtle look, but not a pleasant one. With it the silence shifted from companionably miserable to gloomily tense.

Into this tense, gloomy silence, stepped Buffy Summers. “Wow,” she said in a small voice, trying in vain to maintain her faltering smile, “I’d ask who died...” Suddenly, she found herself wrapped in Xander’s fierce embrace. Giles half rose himself, but thought better of it, and sat instead staring up at her with large sad eyes filled with things he was unable to say. Even Oz looked torn between relief and sorrow and...maybe something else. It was moving to see him moved, even if she wasn’t exactly sure what direction he was moving in.

At last, Xander let her go and the four of them sat down at the table together. Giles was the first to speak. “How is Willow?” he asked.

It was a natural question. (They must know by now that Willow wasn’t coming back to Sunnydale High, and she was the only person at the table who had seen her since her father’s death.) Still, Buffy had to think a minute to come up with a satisfactory answer. “She’s um... not fine?” she tried to explain, “But she’s...strong...she’s coping. Things are bad though... with her mother. They’re um... mostly talking through their lawyer at this point I think.”

“Dear Lord,” Giles rasped, “that’s terrible.”

Oz made a small noise of derision. Given his usual reserve, it got him everyone’s undivided attention. “So what you’re basically saying is, she’s alone, she’s scared, she’s lost everything, including her parents, her school, and all her friends; but you think she’s _coping_?”

Buffy looked down at her hands. “She...uh...seemed to be...when I saw her this morning,” she mumbled.

“Look...” said Oz, “I know you all have your own... drama to deal with and work out, but somebody has to be there for Willow. And I think that somebody should be me. So, I’m not going to be hanging around you guys anymore. Save the world, don’t save the world. I can’t let that be my problem right now.”

“Come on Oz...” Xander began, but he let his voice trail off to nothing when he saw the look in Oz’s eyes. Weirdly, Oz was not glaring at Buffy, but at Giles.

“Don’t worry about the full moon thing,” Oz went on, making it clear that he was tying up all business with the Slayer and her crew for the foreseeable future. “I’ll figure something out.” With that he walked out of the library.

“Wow,” said Xander into the taunt atmosphere he left in his wake, “behold the wrath of Oz. Why is he blaming you guys so hard for all this?” Buffy sent Giles a furtive questioning look, to which he responded with a curt nod of acknowledgment “Hey,” cried Xander, “I saw that. You guys know something that I don’t.”

“A great many things,” said Giles testily.

“Giles!” Buffy scolded.

“Hey, no,” said Xander getting to his feet, “I get it. Loud and clear. None of my business. It’s only my best friend’s life going to Hell. Silly me, all this time, I thought it was my two best friends. Oh well, I guess that’s no surprise with my...uh...limited intellectual abilities. I, uh, guess I’ll catch you guys later, you know if you ever decide I need to know something.”

“Xander, wait!” Buffy called after him, rising to her feet, but he was out the door and gone. Suddenly fuming, she rounded on her Watcher. “Giles, what the Hell was that?” Buffy demanded.

“I...I’m sorry, Buffy...” He managed scratchily. “I don’t know what came over me. When I feel...stressed and...ill... I don’t have as much patience as I ought to have.” Giles breathed in more steam before succumbing to another bout of coughing.

Buffy rolled her eyes and sighed, but she couldn’t keep up her verbal assault, however well deserved, against such a pathetic target. Instead she flopped down in the chair next to him and patted his hand. Giles squeezed her hand briefly in return and gave her a small, companionable smile before taking his hand away to feel inside the pocket of his tweed coat. He withdrew a small package and set it on the table in front of her.

“A present?” she asked puzzled.

Giles shrugged, “better late than never... I suppose.”

Buffy unfolded what she now saw was a plain white sheet of paper wrapped tightly around a half a dozen little pink pills. On the inside of the paper was a hand written note.

Laying the pills on the table, she read:

_Three by Monday night; three more twelve hours later ought to stop your little lamb from crawling off the altar. Now we are bloody well even. Don’t call me again. I know where the bodies are buried because my heart is buried with them. D.P._

“A...um...friend of mine...” Giles was saying. Buffy shook her head, letting the hateful note fall from her trembling fingers. She remembered well the last time she’d been called a ‘lamb’ in quite the same way that note implied. She also remembered the dreams she’d had for months afterward...frantically wrestling with Giles, fighting him for her life, clawing away his face to find that of the Master underneath. Unbidden, she thought of the pragmatic wisdom of Captain Yossarian: ‘The enemy is whoever tries to get you killed.’ But no, Buffy reminded herself, that did not apply here. Whether she was the hunter or the lamb, it was fate that had made her the Slayer, not Giles.

Seeing the note’s effect on her, Giles snatched it up. His eyes grew wide and he literally turned a whiter shade of pale. “Buffy... I’m sorry... I had no idea... I mean I knew David was... bitter towards The Council...”

Buffy gave him a look of miserable sympathy. “I guess neither of us has as many friends as we thought.”

“No,” Giles agreed grimly, “I suppose not.”

“Look,” Buffy said, picking up three of the pills in one hand and a glass of water that happened to be sitting on the table with the other, trying to sound more okay than she really felt, “Don’t sweat it.” She downed the pills and the water in one gulp, folding the other three back into the note. Giles looked mildly horrified. “Giles,” she asked shortly, “what?”

“Buffy!”Giles sputtered. He dissolved into a long fit of coughing, through which he never the less managed to scowl at the glass in Buffy’s hand and gesture at his own throat.

“Oh, relax,” Buffy countered, getting a little exasperated with him, “I never get sick.”

They sat in silence for a minute or two. Buffy looked up at the clock on the wall above and behind Giles. Still over half an hour until third period. She felt strangely uncomfortable waiting here with Giles, deliberately choosing to go somewhere else would have felt even stranger. The thing that had happened between them was just... a thing that had happened, Buffy told herself for the billionth time. She couldn’t let it change who she was around Giles. She just had to get over it. Surely if they both acted normal around each other, consistently, for a long enough period of time, eventually they would start to feel normal around each other again. Surely. Eventually.

Of course, Buffy realized, the pills she had just taken, or more accurately the possibility they existed to prevent, meant that she could not even start to feel normal about her relationship (little r) with Giles until that possibility was resolved. At the moment, however, she found herself feeling almost equally weird about the note. “What does he mean by ‘crawling off the altar’?” she asked uneasily.

Giles sucked in a lungful of steam and coughed again. “It’s a reference,” he explained finally, “a rather sardonic one, to the Council’s position on Slayers... having children. In a roundabout way it’s a biblical allusion. St. Paul calls upon the early Christians to remain pure, holy. There’s a phrase he uses ‘a living sacrifice’, which over the years has become a sort of Council shorthand for the level of commitment that’s expected from Slayers and Watchers alike. If you want to suggest that someone isn’t living up to that standard you would say that that person is ‘crawling off the altar’.”

“Waaaaaiiiiit a minute,” said Buffy incredulously, finally absorbing the implications of what she was hearing, “are you telling me Slayers aren’t _allowed_ to have children.”

“Er... essentially,” Giles admitted uncomfortably, “Though it’s not quite as clear cut as all that. Many of the longer lived Slayers have eventually become mothers, some with the tacit approval of the Council and... some without. In general however, any serious commitment by a Slayer to anything or anyone other than Slaying is... firmly discouraged. The mission is what matters. Nothing else can be allowed to interfere with that.”

“Um, excuse me,” said Buffy, “but I’m not seeing how that’s the same level of commitment ‘for Watchers and Slayers alike.’”

“Well, I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.” Giles reasoned, “For a Watcher, you see, having at least two children is more or less a positive duty. I dare say there are some on the Council who’d be only too happy to make an exception in my case, though that didn’t stop them from bringing up my... shirking in that regard as an argument against my getting this assignment. God, I can just imagine what Quentin Travers would say if he ever found out—! Well, nobody loves a good I-told-you-so more than a bunch of Watchers.”

“You don’t say?” Buffy teased good-naturedly.

Giles smiled, “Yes,” he said, eyes twinkling, “strange as that may seem.”

But there were other things that bothered Buffy about that note. She tried to isolate what they were. For one thing, it was odd, especially under the circumstances, to actually think about all of the years Giles had lived before she’d known him, before she had been born even. It was even odder to think of the people who had lived those years with him, and what might have become of them. He’d never mentioned working with another Slayer, training her, advising her... burying her. He’d never mentioned _not_ doing those things either. That and his comment about the ‘longer lived Slayers’ brought up a subject that had been simmering on the back burner of Buffy’s mind for a long time. “Giles?” she asked, suddenly needing to know, “how long _do_ Slayers... you know... live?”

Giles rubbed his temples in a way that suggested he was struggling with more than sinus pressure. “Well...” he said after a long moment, “that’s... hard to say.”

“Say,” Buffy insisted grimly.

“Well...” Giles ruminated in a scholarly tone, looking down into his steaming pot of whatever that was, “Irmatrude Northham was said to be over forty years old when she died in 1789.”

“And since then?” Buffy persisted.

“Erm, Nikki Wood, I suppose, was the longest lived Slayer of this century. She lived to be thirty-one. She had a son incidentally, about four years old when she died. I can think of a couple of others who lived into their late twenties but...”

A brittle laugh escaped Buffy’s lips. “Tell me,” she demanded, “what percentage of Slayers are lucky enough to live so long?”

Giles shifted uncomfortably, but stated the facts. “About one in four Slayers lives to be twenty. About one in ten make it to twenty-five.”

“How many Slayers have there been this century?”

“You are the 27th. Kendra is the 28th.”

Buffy took a deep breath. “Am I...”

“My first Slayer?” Giles anticipated. “No. I’ve been assigned to two previous Slayers. I... uh...I don’t usually like to... think.... It’s a war, Buffy. Whatever anyone says about glory and honor, etc., war is all about death.”

“I’m getting that,” Buffy murmured.

“I buried those girls,” Giles continued, earnestly, “and I kept on with the mission, moved on to the next assignment. That’s what we do, Watchers.” Was there a trace of bitterness in his voice?

“So as soon as I die,” Buffy asked, “you’ll just move on to the next Slayer in line?”

“Oh, no, Buffy” Giles clarified, “In the first place I—well even if I thought I could... handle it... the assignment process is very... erm... complicated, political. If a Slayer-in-Training is called, usually her existing Watcher remains in service, though not always. In... um... cases like yours, a very experienced Watcher (such as Mr. Merrick) is usually assigned to help the new Slayer grow into her roll. When a Slayer has to be assigned a second or a third Watcher... things get even more complicated. You have all of the new Watchers angling for a chance to get into the field as well as more experienced Watchers wanting to stay on. Favors are called in. Enemies are made. It’s all rather tense.”

“So this David...” Buffy asked, “Is he a... rival Watcher?”

“No,” Giles told her. “Celeste, his... um... his late wife, was the first Watcher of my first Slayer, Amanda.”

“Did they raise her?” Buffy asked, “Was she like Kendra?”

“Not exactly,” Giles explained. “Amanda was identified as a Potential Slayer in 1985. She was thirteen. Generally speaking, when a Potential has reached that age in a... less than receptive culture, we don’t approach them directly with the idea of being a Slayer, at least, not at first. We tracked her for several months. I was in charge of keeping tabs on her whenever she was in the London area, which was actually quite a bit, because her father was stationed at the U.S. Embassy there. So I was considered all along to be in the running should she ever need a second Watcher for any reason.”

Something had shifted for Buffy in the course of this conversation. Her fear and anger about the short life expectancy of the Slayer were no longer as immediate as her need to know about Giles and his experience of Watcher/Slayerdom. In all the time she’d known him, he’d never opened up like this about his life in the Slaying game.

“The lead Watcher on our tracking team,” he went on, “was moved to Seattle, where Amanda lived. He got a job at her school and started attending her Perish church. We learned that she was interested in gymnastics, so another Watcher was brought in and maneuvered into the position of becoming her coach. That was Celeste. It was obvious that they had a report, and so the Council appointed her as Amanda’s official Watcher. Both she and David became very close to Amanda. She came to trust and rely on them, and within a few months time, they had gradually introduced her to her destiny. I was still essentially in reserve in her case, and also on tracking back up for a couple of other Potentials.

“Then in July of 1987, the Slayer at the time, Constance Gesh, was killed by a demon summoner in Rumania. Amanda was called. Celeste stayed on as her official Watcher. And, for a time, I was assigned primarily to other duties: demon research, occult instruction of future Watchers... but I always kept abreast of what was happening with Amanda, as was my duty.

“Then, in June of 1990, Celeste was...was killed.”Suddenly, Giles seemed to be reliving the event he was describing. There was shock and pain in his voice, as if he were just learning of this woman’s death for the first time. Buffy reached for his hand, to comfort him. To her surprise, she found it jerked away. A deep connection of true intimacy, of sharing that had been unconsciously growing between them was broken like a spell. Giles stood and began shuffling through papers at the far end of the table. “Well then Amanda was with me for two years,” he said hurriedly, without looking at Buffy. “And then in ’94 I was assigned to Christine Laughton, English girl, only lived a few months, and then I was put back on reserved until I was sent here.”

With that, the conversation shut down completely. Buffy wanted desperately to open it back up again, but she was at a loss to know how to do so. The bell rang. Giles stooped over the table, hacking up a lung again. With a deep sigh, Buffy tucked the hate wrapped pills into her jacket pocket, got up and headed to class.

****

Oz knocked on Willow’s front door around lunch time. He had a large bouquet of bright yellow chrysanthemums which he held out to Sheila when she opened the front door. She was dressed in black and wearing a scarf on her head. She looked at the flowers warily. “I suppose, those are for Willow,” she commented. It hurt and angered Oz to hear the bitterness with which she spoke her daughter’s name, but he kept his expression politely neutral.

“No, actually,” he answered, “they’re for your husband.”

A bleak smile flickered across Sheila’s face. “Please,” she said, taking the bouquet, “come in.”

Willow was there, dressed in black like her mother. Her eyes told Oz she was surprised and happy to see him, but she kept her face as blank as possible. Not a good sign. “Daniel,” she said blandly, “thank you for coming.” Apparently, he was not supposed to be ‘Oz’, obviously one of the friends her mom associated with Buffy.

Oz struggled for something appropriate to say in the presence of the Rabbi and the dozen or more mourners that filled the dimly lit room. “Well,” he said, “Dr. Rosenberg delivered me,” which was true. It was true for a lot of the kids at Sunnydale High.

“He touched a lot of lives,” said Willow bleakly.

“Yes,” Sheila interjected pointedly, “your father was a good man. He deserves... respect.”

“Can I get you something to eat?” Willow asked, ignoring her mother. “There’s a ton of food in the kitchen.”

“I’d like that,” said Oz, following her into the other room.

As soon as they were alone, Willow’s impassive mask melted to reveal an expression of fatigue, grief and desperate need. “Oh, Oz” she cried, “thank God you’re here. You have to get a message to Buffy.”

Oz blinked, taken aback, but rallied quickly. He certainly would have preferred if she had asked for his understanding ear or his shoulder to cry on, but it was Willow’s time of distress and he was willing to be whatever she needed, even if all she needed was a messenger. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll see her at school tomorrow.”

“No,” said Willow, “tomorrow may be too late. And you probably won’t be able to talk to her tonight. We both have a six o’clock curfew. She’s going to have enough trouble getting out at all. You’d better go back to school after lunch. Sorry.”

“Hey, no problem.” He assured her,“I’m a senior so the go and come back thing is pretty much legit. What do you need?”

“A Vampire Slayer,” said Willow grimly, “for my father.”

“Oh,” said Oz quietly. “I’m sorry.” Suddenly, Oz was nearly knocked over as Willow lunged into his arms, which he obligingly wrapped around her.

Willow buried her face in his chest and sobbed. “There was blood, on his lips. The coroner’s report said there was blood on his lips, but it wasn’t his. It wasn’t his blood type. I can’t let this happen to him, Oz, I can’t!”

“Shuuuush,” Oz whispered soothingly, holding her tight. “We won’t; I promise we won’t.”

****

Buffy returned to the library at 2:30 just as she’d been instructed, to wait for her mother to pick her up at 5:30. It was déjà vu all over again, although this time, she was so far beyond grounded. “Yeah,” said Buffy, explaining the situation to Giles, who seemed to be feeling a little better, “She said, and I quote, ‘because I know Mr. Giles will be there and he’s the only one in that whole place I trust to keep an eye on you.’”

“Well,” he said chagrined, “that’s a bit...ironic to say the least.”

“I thought so too,” Buffy agreed, “But hey, at least I don’t have to make excuses to come here for training, so that’s a good. I’m not sure how I’m going to keep up with my patrols though. I mean, I know I can sneak out, like always, but now if I get caught... I get a little bit more than grounded, ya know.”

“Yes,” Giles agreed, “You’ll certainly need to be very careful.”

“And that’s not just through April, either,” She pointed out, glumly. “At least according to the lawyer. Even if I’m lucky enough to get probation, there’s definitely going to be a curfew involved. Of course, they could always lock me up until I’m 21, or try to.”

Giles brow furrowed. “Who are you using?” He asked, “For a lawyer I mean.”

“My mom’s divorce lawyer, Doug Graff, which I don’t even know why because we have to drive all the way to L.A. to see him, and I don’t think he knows that much about Juvenile Court anyway.”

Giles made a dissatisfied expression then seemed to come to a resolution. “Here,” he said, pulling a card out of his breast pocket, “You need to call my lawyer, Hal Gaston.”

Buffy reached out and took the card from his outstretched hand. Both of them pretended not to notice the spark of sexual energy that seemed to leap across the space where their fingers almost touched but didn’t quite. “Well...uhm...” said Giles clearing his throat, his voice becoming quiet, edged with guilt. “Hal... has his... erm... his main office in Elmwood, but he keeps an office in Sunnydale as well, so he works quite a bit with the courts in this county. I’ve used him for some... complicated immigration issues, and I know he has extensive criminal experience as well. I don’t know about Juvenile Court specifically, but he has...connections. I suspect it’s _who_ you know around here worse than anywhere.”

“Thanks,” said Buffy, tucking the card into her purse, “It’s nice, having you looking out for me.” Her lovely-sad emerald eyes looked up at him with unbearable gratitude. He gave in to a large sneeze, using it as an opportunity to turn away. Buffy sighed, trying to focus on the homework in front of her. Why did he have to act like that? Like he’d _done_ something to her? It made her feel sad and in a strange way kind of defeated. She didn’t need his remorse. She needed him to snap out of it and be her strong, confident Watcher again. ‘ _Don’t be sorry_ , _be Giles','_ Buffy thought, remembering the one time he’d fallen apart on her even worse than this. Oh well. He might be wallowing in guilt again, but at least this time he was on his feet, sober and doing what he could to help her.

Giles sighed too. He knew he was missing the mark, not giving Buffy the comfort and support she needed. “It’s my job to look out for you,” he pointed out, pulling a chair next to hers and laying a hand on her shoulder, “and my privilege. You don’t have to thank me.”

Buffy turned towards him. Their faces were inches apart. “Most people just say ‘you’re welcome’,” she said with mock gravity. Without even thinking, Giles leaned in a little closer, moving his hand up Buffy’s shoulder to the back of her head, running his fingers once through her hair. Buffy leaned into his embrace, tilting her face upwards, her lips slightly apart.

Rupert’s mind went suddenly dim as blood rushed away from his brain. He no longer knew exactly what he had intended to accomplish by putting his arms around Buffy, only that he was glad to have her in his arms. He could smell the clean sent of her skin. He could feel the depth of her longing for his affection. His heart pounded. His breath quickened and deepened. Suddenly, Buffy pulled away, blushing crimson. They were no longer alone in the library.

Giles straightened up quickly, clearing his throat. “Oh erm, Oz, hello,” he said, smoothing his suit front self-consciously. “I was just showing Buffy... that is Buffy was just showing me...”he let the sentence die amidst a moderate amount of coughing.

“Just a thought,” said Oz, “poker, not your game.”

“Yes, well...” Giles deflected, “can I help you with something?”

“Actually,” Oz informed him, “it’s Willow who needs your help, or more accurately,” he amended, turning to Buffy, “Willow needs _your_ help. It’s her Dad. He’s going to rise from his grave at the Star of David Cemetery, probably tonight.”

“Good Lord,” Giles gasped.

“Is she sure?” Buffy asked.

Oz nodded, “the coroner said he had blood on his lips. It wasn’t his”

“Damn,” said Buffy pensively. “That’s way on the other end of town, past the University, around Sunset Ridge. I’ll have to get there by sunset, too. No way am I going to take a chance of missing him.”

“I’ll drive,” Oz offered.

“But,” said Buffy, “what am I going to do about—”

“Your mother,” Giles concluded.

“Exactly,” Buffy agreed, “she expects me to be waiting here at 5:30, but we need to leave before that.”

The three of them stood for a moment in contemplative silence.“I don’t think the ‘gas leak’ story will work again,” Giles murmured thoughtfully.

“I didn’t work the last time,” Buffy reminded him. “I was confined to my room for a month. Officially anyway.”

“You know,” said Oz, “I have a radical suggestion. You could tell your mom the truth.”

“And she’s going to believe me because...?” Buffy demanded.

“Seeing Dr. Rosenberg rise from his grave might be a pretty good clue,” Oz suggested.

“Hey that’s right!” Buffy responded, with sarcastic enthusiasm, “And getting killed by Angel and his gang (who _will_ show up the minute the sun sets) that should really convince her!”

“Hey,” said Oz, spreading his hands before him, “Just trying to help.”

“Okay,” said Buffy, pacing now, “So my Mom’s coming here and I’m not going to be here. That’s the problem, what can we do about it?”

“Well,” said Giles thoughtfully, “if we can’t....” He paused to sneeze. ”If we can’t satisfactorily explain your absence...” more coughing and sneezing followed.

“If we can’t explain my absence...” Buffy began, smiling now.

“—the police will likely be called.” Giles concluded.

“No they won’t,” Buffy informed him, “because my Mom isn’t going to be here.”

Giles was puzzled for moment but Oz instantly understood. “Ok,” he said, “how do we stop her?”

“Car trouble, I think” said Buffy.

“That’ll never work,” Giles interjected, “at most it will slow her down for an hour or so. You don’t know when Dr. Ro—the vampire will decide to rise.”

“Which is why we’re not waiting for him to rise,” Buffy informed him, “I’m going to dig him up.” There was a moment of stunned silence. “What?” said Buffy, “Anyone have a better suggestion?” No one did. “So let’s get moving,” Buffy went on. “Giles, you’ll have to stay here to talk to Mom when she calls...”

“But shouldn’t I be...” his protest died in a fit of coughing, concluded with a groan of misery. His symptoms seemed to be coming back with a vengeance. “Right,” he said, “I’ll wait here for your mother to call.”

“We need more people than this, though,” Buffy went on, planning out loud. “We’ve got to dig fast. There’s a pretty high wall, so we can start a little before dark, but the longer we’re there, the more chance we’ll be seen.”

“We should get Xander,” Oz agreed.

Buffy and Giles exchanged a look. “He’ll do it,” Buffy announced, concluding the unspoken debate. “It’s for Willow. Oz, you’d better be the one to ask him though. Things are kind of...” Buffy started to explain, but she could see that Oz got it.

“Okay,” Buffy recapped, “So Xander and I are digging. Giles is here. That leaves you to distract Mom...except...then how are we getting to the cemetery?... Cordelia?”

“Out sick,” said Oz.

“Okay,” Buffy replanned, “so that’s me and Oz to dig and Xander to distract Mom... We need more people.”

“I really don’t think there’s anyone else we can trust,” Giles pointed out.

“Fine,” Buffy said, “Then that’s the plan. Oz, see if Xander’s still here. If not, go to his home. Drop him off at the Gallery. Tell him to do something to Mom’s car... I don’t know... something to make it not start... Then maybe he could offer to help her with it... that way he can slow everything down and warn us if she finds a way to leave.”

“I know just the thing,” Oz assured her.

****

It was dark in the box, dark and rather confining, but it smelled wonderfully of pine resin and dried blood. The demon that couldn’t help thinking of itself as Ira Rosenberg nodded his approval in the silent dark. He was wearing some kind of loose garment that may have been open at the back, but his bloodstained clothes were somewhere in the box with him. Rabbi Mike, Demon Ira decided. Again he approved. Rabbi Mike was a good Jew, conscientious, detail oriented. It was smart of Sheila to let him handle these things. Sheila paid so little attention to religion, if she’d tried to handle the arrangements herself, she’d have only ended up offending someone on the Rosenberg side of the family.

Of course, they’d all be mightily offended to learn that the mortal remains of Ira Rosenberg hadn’t agreed to stay planted in the dust they came from after all. But, then, if he timed that disclosure just right, they’d be in a position to make their complaints directly to the ‘One True Judge’ themselves. Let Him do something about it if He was going to. Demon Ira wasn’t worried. This Earth was still more a devil’s dominion than not and he intended to walk the Earth a good long time.

That is, if only the sun would go down. Demon Ira could not have told you how he knew that the sun was up or that he needed it to go down. He simply knew. He didn’t fear the sun. He didn’t fear anything, including death. But he was interested in doing a lot of things with the rest of his existence, and bursting into flames was not one of them. He waited.

**** 

It was a quarter past five when Joyce finally pushed her last customer out of the Gallery, more or less literally. She had told Buffy to wait for her until five-thirty and she was not about to give her the chance to ‘misunderstand’ and wander off. Besides, she was under court order to have her daughter home by six o’clock. Of course, getting Buffy home was not likely to be her biggest problem, Joyce realized. It was keeping her there. Serial Killer or not, she was starting to think Ted had had the right idea about nailing Buffy’s bedroom window shut, not that she wasn’t perfectly capable of pulling the nails out. As Joyce turned the key in the lock and headed for the parking lot, she briefly considered cutting down the tree outside Buffy’s window. Knowing Buffy, though, she’d just climb over the roof and come down via the front porch.

Lost in these unpleasant thoughts Joyce unlocked her black SUV and got into the vehicle without really even seeing it. She put the key in the ignition and turned. Nothing happened. “Whell!” said Joyce, exasperated, “that’s just great! That’s exactly what I need!” She tried the key one more time, then got out and slammed the door.

As she stood there, fuming, Joyce heard a familiar voice. “Hey there,” said Xander, “need a hand with that flat tire?”

“No,” Joyce started to explain plaintively, “my car won’t—” She looked down along the side of her car to see that the left rear tire was, sure enough, flat as a pancake. “Damn it!” She swore. “I do _not_ have _time_ for this.”

“Do you have a jack,” Xander offered. “I’ll change it for you.”

“Don’t bother,” said Joyce. “The motor won’t start. I’ll have to call a tow truck.”

Buffy’s friend seemed strangely worried by this news. “No!” he shouted, gesturing dramatically to no apparent purpose. Joyce was as startled as she was puzzled. “No,” he repeated, a little more calmly, “uh, jumper cables. Yeah, what you need is someone to give you a jump.” The boy actually blushed when he said this, “not... that is... I didn’t mean... I mean... _I_ don’t have a car or anything,”Joyce sighed deeply but resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He was trying so hard to be helpful. For an instant, she wondered if he had sabotaged her car just to get the chance to rescue her, but that was crazy, she realized. She was starting to be as delusional as Buffy. This kid wasn’t interested in her, just embarrassed by his poor choice of words.

Smiling as warmly as she could manage, Joyce excused herself and started to walk back towards the Gallery. Suddenly, she found Xander blocking her path, trying frantically to explain something about how a tow truck would take too long and hadn’t she better just let him fix her flat and wait for one of the drivers of the nearby cars to come and jump-start her. Joyce wasn’t buying it. “Alright,”she said, folding her arms “Where’s Buffy? What kind of crazy stunt are you kids trying to pull? You had better tell me now because I have had it! I will find out what is going on and when I do I’m going to put a stop to it, do you understand me Alexander Harris!”

“Hey,” said Xander backing away with his palms splayed before him, “There’s nothing going on. I was just trying to help.”

“Well then,” Joyce said, “you won’t mind coming inside with me while we call Mr. Giles and make sure Buffy is right where she’s supposed to be.”

“Not a bit,” Xander assured her scowling. The two walked back to the gallery in stony silence. Xander tried very hard to appear merely indignant rather than panicked. It was supposed to take him until at least six o’clock to change Joyce’s flat tire before she even discovered that the car wouldn’t start. As it was, she could have a tow driver here in ten minutes, who could tighten her battery cables, fix the flat and have her back on the road in no time. His only hope was that Giles would have some kind of bright idea. But then, he was Giles, so that was actually a pretty good hope.

Giles wanted to pick up the phone on the first ring, but it took him until the third to manage it. His symptoms were getting even worse. He wanted desperately to lie down on his own—Couch. He sighed heavily. “Hello?” he said in a flat nasal squeak.

“Mr. Giles,” Joyce asked without preamble, “Where’s Buffy?” There was so much tension and suppressed anger in voice that for a moment he thought she knew what he had done.

“She’s...Ahsh... right...Ahshew... here,” he managed between sneezes operating on the assumption that whatever she did or didn’t know she would prefer to hear that Buffy was where she had been told to be, “been here... Ah...all...Ah...afternoon...Ahshew... doing her... Ashew...her homework.”

Joyce sighed with audible relief. Giles was relieved with her... or against her as it were. “Is everything... alright,” he asked, now that he could be fairly certain what her answer would be.

Already, she was shifting from relieved to embarrassed. “Oh” she fumbled, “I’ve just been having a little car trouble and for some reason... I got the idea... oh Xander, I’m so sorry...”

Giles suppressed a sigh of exasperation. Typical Xander Harris, no doubt he had overplayed his part and aroused her suspicions. “Hey, no sweat,” Xander said loud enough to be heard on the other end of the line, “I’m just going to go see what trouble I can dig up to get into, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Good job Joyce,” Mrs. Summers scolded herself, apparently forgetting that she was holding a phone receiver in her hand.

“Well...” croaked Giles awkwardly, “so...your...erm... your car...”

“Are you alright?” Joyce asked, finally making mention of the fact that he was barely able to speak.

“Oh, I’ll be alright,” he assured her between continued bouts of coughing and sneezing.

“Well,” said Joyce skeptically, “I hope so. They say this flu bug is supposed to be pretty bad. People are coming into the Gallery in surgical masks.”

“Yes,” he said unable to help himself, “you Americans do tend to panic a bit about these things.”

“I see,” said Joyce coolly, “yes, well, be that as it may... as I said, I’m having trouble with my car. I’m about to call the auto club, but I’m afraid I’m going to be a little late picking up Buffy.”

“Oh well,” said Giles, “that’s quite alright. I’ll be here at any rate, just... catching up on a few things. Take your time.”

“Oh, I’m sure I won’t be too long,” she assured him, warming back up a little.

“You know,” said Giles, not wanting her to hang up, “It occurs to me that... um... that...um Buffy could benefit from something to do of an evening... to keep herself out of trouble.”

“Boy, you said it!” Joyce agreed, “I think she’s been at a loose end ever since she was cut from the Cheerleading squad. I swear, I don’t even know where she goes at night anymore... and now this!”

“Yes,” Giles agreed “the whole situation is a bit... alarming.” The statement was true, but Giles couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being disloyal to Buffy as well as dishonest to her mother speaking of her ‘situation’ as if he had nothing to do with it. It made him think of the preacher in that rather silly American story by that silliest of all American writers, Nathaniel Hawthorn, who had secretly tortured himself to death in atonement for forcing his own mistress to face the public penalties of their adultery alone. Rupert _was_ torturing himself he realized, and a lot of bloody good it was doing Buffy.

“So what did you have in mind?” Joyce asked.

“Well... I...” Rupert stammered, he hadn’t had anything in mind other than a vague thought that Buffy needed an excuse to get out of the house most nights and that he needed a topic to keep Joyce on the phone. To that end, he fumbled blindly ahead, “I really don’t know... some sort of gymnastics classes or something I suppose. Or Martial Arts perhaps.”

Joyce seemed to think about this for a moment, “There are some Thai Chi classes as the gym at the Mall... but I’d have to leave the Gallery awfully early to take her to the afternoon classes. And she can’t go to the evening ones; she’s...um no longer allowed out after six o’clock... so that pretty much spoils that whole idea now that I think about it.”

“You mean to tell me she’s not allowed to go anywhere after six pm, even if you’re with her?” Giles asked, as if hearing this condition of Buffy’s release for the first time, hoping to stir up Joyce’s obvious frustration with this inconvenient restriction.

“That’s right,” said Joyce, “and it looks like we’re going to be late the very first night. I honestly don’t know how we’re going to keep this up until Buffy goes back to court in April.”

Giles pulled out his pocket watch and took a glance. It was just coming up on 5:35. Buffy would only be beginning her work at the cemetery. Even if Xander found a way over there to warn her and to help dig, how much could he really do to speed up the process?

“Well,” said Joyce, “I’d better get going. I need to call a tow truck.”

Giles was suddenly struck with desperate inspiration. “Well, what seems to be the trouble, maybe I can help?”

“Well,” said Joyce, “There’s a flat tire, and the... battery I guess... but I don’t want you to put yourself to any trouble... especially with you not feeling well... and with Buffy...”

“Nonsense,” said Giles trying very hard to suppress a cough, “I’ll just drop Buffy by your house, to make sure she’s home by six, then I’ll come see what I can do.”

“So, you did finally get your car back then?” she asked.

“Er... yes... very thoroughly cleaned too. I feel perhaps I ought to send a thank you note to the police station.” There was an awkward silence. “Well, at any rate, let me just lock up here, I’ll drop Buffy by the house on the way, and I’ll see you in about... twenty minutes.”

They said their goodbyes and Giles quickly locked up the library and headed for the cemetery. He hadn’t gone far when he found Xander, taking the same route, jogging along at a fair rate of speed. “Get in,” he said, opening the door.

“Thanks,” said Xander, breathing heavily as they got back underway.

“I told Joyce I’d drop Buffy by the house and come pick her up,” Giles explained. That should buy us at least half an hour of inertia, even if I don’t make it back before she gives up on me.” Of course, Giles realized, nearly twenty minutes of that would be used in getting to the graveyard and back.


	6. Accidents and Miracles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Angel sets a trap for Buffy at the local Jewish Cemetery, he may find that some traps swing both ways as startling events reveal that Willow may be more than she seems. The results of a car crash lead Buffy to a new realization about her feelings for Giles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Final Exciting Chapter of Part I: "A Thing That Happened"

Sweat stung Buffy’s eyes but she ignored it. She kept digging, working alongside Oz in grim, urgent silence. This was not the kind of work where Slayer strength helped a lot. No matter how strong Buffy was, she could still only lift one shovel full of dirt at a time. They were getting close, but close wasn’t good enough. The sun was sinking rapidly. It had already fallen beneath the cemetery wall, it’s rays too weak and slanted to provide much protection. Vampires could start showing up en mass at any time. Buffy had no doubt that Angel knew exactly where she would be right now.

Fortunately, there were no sewer grates around here and no mausoleums in the Jewish cemetery. They would have to walk or drive from some other point of access to the surface and then come through the gate or over the wall. Buffy should be able to see them coming at least. She was really more worried about Oz’s safety than her own. She’d have told him to leave, but he wouldn’t have, so there was no reason to waste time arguing about it.

At last, they heard the sound of shovels clonking on wood. Buffy put her finger to her lips and gave Oz a boost up out of the grave. She brushed aside as much of the remaining dirt as possible. Crouching against the side of the pit, slightly above and to the side of the coffin, the Slayer pulled hard on the simple iron latch, breaking it in two. In one smooth motion, she pushed pack the lid and leaned over the open pine box, stake in hand, ready to strike. There he lay, eyes closed, mouth relaxed in a perfect expression of peace. He was clothed in long robes of flowing white, his glasses perched serenely on his nose, looking at once scholarly and angelic. Of course, Buffy knew only too well the risk of being deceived by angelic appearances.

Buffy’s mind was racing as she brought up her arm to strike. What was actually supposed to happen if you staked a potential vampire _before_ the demon was risen in it? Did the demon invade the body at the time of death, or at the time of rising? Would the stake itself awaken the vampire? Would it turn to dust or simply remain dead? Would it make any difference to the condition of the soul? Should she be trying to stake _more_ vampires before they rose? Alternatively, if the demon did not enter until the time of rising, would staking what was currently only a dead body keep it out at all? Would it be necessary to leave the stake in? Should she cut off his head just in case?Buffy had no answers to these questions. There was no time to contemplate them now.

Falling upon the mortal remains of Ira Rosenberg, she plunged her stake deep into the upper left side of his chest through the ribcage, below the breast bone. Ira’s eyes flew open, filled with shock and terror. But, as they morphed from brown to yellow in a face that became a snarling, demonic mask, shock and terror were replaced by sneering hatred. “Fool!” he hissed, grabbing the stake from his own chest and striking Buffy in the throat with the butt of it. Buffy coughed and sputtered for breath, struggling to understand what was happening. She knew her aim had been exact.

Seizing the moment, Demon Ira got his hands around his attacker’s throat. In the dim glow of the fading sunset, he recognized her, with some surprise, as Buffy Summers, Willow’s little friend from school. She really was a good friend Ira thought, coming out here and basically throwing away her own life in an attempt to keep this body in the ground where it belonged. It was touching really. The only trouble was it didn’t quite seem to be working out that way. The Summers girl was surprisingly strong, Ira realized. She wretched herself out of his grasp as if he had been no more than a middle aged physician after all. Maybe he only _felt_ like he should have been supernaturally strong and powerful. Maybe what little sunlight there was was getting to him. He didn’t know what the problem was. What he did know was that he was fighting this girl for his very existence, and she did not seem to be giving up, or tiring.

****

When Giles turned into the curve around Sunset Ridge and saw the body lying across the road in front of him, he felt absolutely no temptation to stop and try to render assistance. This was one of the oldest tricks in the vampire book because it worked so well, on almost anyone. Rupert Giles knew better. In fact, he was tempted to stomp on the accelerator and run right over the thing. On the off chance it was an actual human being; however, he swerved around it instead. That was a mistake. Three things happened at once. The Citron weaved around the body, into the oncoming lane, at the very center of the curve, coming within inches of the narrow shoulder and the precipitous drop below. Giles involuntarily closed his eyes and relaxed his grip on the wheel, giving in to a sneeze. The ‘body’ rose into a low crouch and shoved the car sideways with all its vampiric might.

The wheels lost contact with the pavement. Suddenly, Giles and Xander realized that they were airborne, tumbling sideways in space. Just as suddenly, Xander realized that they had landed hard against some kind of solid object in the darkness. Giles lay unconscious against the spider webbed safety glass of the driver’s side window, which was situated downhill from the passenger’s side at a fairly steep angle. Blood ran freely from a gash in his forehead on the downhill side. Blood. Vampires. Ugly death come to play.

Xander felt under the seat, knowing there was supposed to be a flashlight. Either it had rolled free in the crash, or it had never been replaced after that weekend’s police search. Giles still hadn’t moved or uttered a word, but Xander could hear his ragged breathing. Bracing himself against the seat and the steering column so that he wouldn’t fall on top of him, Xander unfastened his seatbelt and reached down to turn Giles’ head for a closer look at his wound. He couldn’t see much, but he could tell he needed something to stop the bleeding. There was a pile of something spilled against the back left window; a cardboard box full of apparently random items: several flimsy pieces of paper... a tire gauge... jumper cables... a flashlight. Flashlight! The contents of the vehicle, boxed up and inventoried by the police. Xander turned on the flashlight. In its relative brightness, he quickly found something to press against the wound: a sturdy pink cloth, filthy but absorbent looking, of the type use to clean windshields at the last lingering full service gas stations of his childhood. Placing the flashlight in his mouth, he held the cloth as hard as he could against Giles’ head while he rummaged among the scattered contents of the box for something to hold it in place.

His hand closed around something slender and stretchy. When he saw it in the light, he almost dropped it. Laughing nervously at himself, he tied the bra around Giles’ head as tightly as he could, trying to put maximum pressure on the place where the blood was actually coming out. It was a front clasp design. The two cups at the tying ends made a big floppy bow on the side of Giles’ head opposite the wound. Xander tried not to think about how the garment had come to be there. The image of two middle aged teachers going at it in the back seat, or at all, didn’t fit comfortably in his mind.

He turned his attention back to the crisis at hand. They had to get out of here. He hadn’t heard any vampires scrabbling downhill towards the car, so they’d probably gone on ahead to attack Buffy. But depending on how badly she kicked their asses there was a good chance the survivors would eventually return, hungry for blood and payback. Even if they didn’t, Giles needed a doctor, and they were miles from a phone.

***

Six o’clock came and went. Joyce tried the house again, then the library. She left messages on both machines. Finally, at ten after, she called Triple A, just as she should have done half an hour earlier. She was told that she would have to wait a further fifteen minutes. While she waited, she began to think of how little she really knew Rupert Giles. Her gut had always told her he was someone she could trust, that he was kind, sensitive and competent. That he really cared about Buffy. So, where was he, and where was Buffy?The answer to the second question was obvious. She’d gone gallivanting off, in defiance of her mother and the Del Bacco County Juvenile Court, with whomever she was currently sleeping with. No doubt another denizen of whatever late night bastion of crime and insanity had produced ‘Angel’ if not the murderer himself.

Unless... No, it was too terrible even to think. She was sure that Mr. Giles was simply being held up, she hoped not literally. While it was definitely true that he had taken a special interest in Buffy, had even come by the house a few times, Joyce was sure his dealings with her daughter had always been above board. It did seem like an extraordinary coincidence that Angel should steal his car in order to ‘kidnap’ Buffy, but she’d been assuming that was Buffy’s doing. She’d always thought of Mr. Giles as a positive influence on Buffy. Of course, she had to remind herself, she had always thought of Willow as a positive influence too; a good, sensible girl so unlike the type Buffy used to run with in L.A. Joyce didn’t know what to think anymore. She didn’t know where to turn or who to trust. At six twenty-five exactly, the tow truck pulled up alongside her car. At least she could still count on Triple A.

****

Seconds stretched into minutes as Oz stood staring helplessly from the edge of the grave at the two figures struggling below. If the vampire had ever once gotten on top, he supposed he could have leapt down on top of him, but as it was, he would have been leaping on to Buffy’s back, which he was pretty sure would not qualify as helping. He held a shovel before him, blade first, ready to swing from the shoulder with both hands, like a baseball bat, but he had no other weapons. He scanned the gate area and all along the perimeter of the cemetery. No sign of backup vampires so far, but he was sure they were on their way. Looking back towards the battle of the pine box, searching for an opening, he remained alert for the sound of approaching cars. For the first time in a long time, he wished he hadn’t quit smoking pot in the tenth grade. Then at least he might have had a cigarette lighter. He wondered if there might be one of Devon’s in the van. If so, he had an idea.

****

Buffy was getting more than a little frustrated. This was supposed to be a solemn mission of mercy, not an all night work out. She had plunged her stake into Ira Rosenberg’s chest at least a half a dozen times, all along the left side and even once on the right, every conceivable place a person’s heart should have been. His white robes where ripped to shreds revealing most of his pallid chest and the huge, ugly seems where he had been sown back together following his autopsy. That was it, she realized.“You know,” Buffy panted, “I just don’t believe your heart is in the right place anyone, Dr. Rosenberg.”

A mean laugh came from deep in Demon Ira’s throat, so different from the one the good doctor had had in life. “My, my,” he grunted, “no... respect... for the dead,”

“I’m the kind of girl who laughs at a funeral,” she confirmed with cheerful bravado. Somehow, the heart thing crystallized matters in Buffy’s mind. She was no longer fighting Willow’s father. He was not the man he had been, and she was able to treat him the same as any other vampire, albeit a pretty feisty one.

He had managed to get both hands on the stake again, so that they were both holding it between them, pointing to the side rather than at anyone’s chest in particular. “Getting tired yet, little Buffy?” he asked nastily.

“No, not a bit,” she grunted, though she actually was starting to feel a little tired.

Demon Ira smiled. “They’re coming for me,” he said serenely. “I can feel them. They’re almost here.” The next thing he felt was the top of Buffy’s skull hitting him in the face.

****

At last, through a break in the trees, Angel saw the six-sided wrought-iron star that dominated the huge swinging gate of the Star of David Cemetery. He motioned for his minions to follow him, swiftly and silently across the clearing that stood between them and the gate. As they all broke the tree line, they were met by an amusing sight. A pint sized, red headed figure (whom Angel recognized as a Sunnydale student and sometimes werewolf frequently seen with Willow at the Bronze) was crouched in the shadow of his van with the door open, holding a shovel with what looked like a ball of wet socks tied to one end.

Angel smelled gasoline and grinned. So, this kid was ready for a fight, was he? Had himself a weapon and everything. The vampires continued to advance slowly, nonchalantly now that they had seen what Buffy’s forward defenses were reduced to. As they got closer, they could see that the boy held a cigarette lighter, already aflame, in his other hand. They nudged each other, picturing the little human holding his tiny flame to those gas soaked rags under his own nose. This was going to be absolutely hilarious.

Suddenly, as if he had finally comprehended the danger he was in, the kid leapt into his vehicle and slammed the door, letting his shovel lance dangle absurdly out of the window. At the same moment he fired the engine and tossed the lighter like a grenade at the end of the makeshift weapon. Instead of flickering out and falling uselessly to the ground, it stayed lit and ignited the torch end of the shovel at a safe distance from the vehicle. The kid had taped the lighter button down. The young werewolf revved the engine and barreled straight into the crowd of vampires, his flaming lance going before him. It wasn’t funny anymore.

****

Xander tried to stand into a sort of crouch, using the driver’s side of the vehicle as a floor so that he could heave upwards on the passage door and create an escape hatch. The nose of the vehicle pitched forward alarmingly, forcing him to roll back toward the center of the cabin again. Whatever that side of the car was resting against, it was not solid ground. Giles whimpered, muttering something that seemed to be on the edge of speech, but when Xander held his eyelids open and shined the flashlight into them, they remained fixed and dilated. A vague memory of combat medical training, which he knew he had not actually attended, told him that this was very, very bad. The smell of gasoline was beginning to permeate the interior of the vehicle. Also not good. He wondered if he’d have better luck trying to open one of the rear doors, but he didn’t love the thought of what might happen in the actual process of climbing over the seat. If there wasn’t enough support back there, they might go tumbling down the side of the hill again.

Xander shined his flashlight through the unbroken left rear window. It revealed far more that the shattered driver’s window had. Empty space. A bleak hillside dotted with spindly trees. A leafy bough, hanging much too near to belong to any of them. Looking through the windshield on that side, he saw the same things. The car rested against a single tree, ready to pinwheel off into the night if he moved too far forward or backward. Xander thought about this for a moment, trying to imagine that it was some kind of combat exercise, a puzzle to be solved. He needed to stand to have the leverage to push the door open, but he could not stand too far forward or back. He needed to stand _on_ the tree, more or less exactly where Giles’ head was.

Moving carefully, he leaned Giles as much as he could up the steep incline towards the passenger side and scuttled over him. The window glass was slick with blood, but an experimental kick or two cleared away most of the cracked material, allowing him to plant his sneakers directly on bark. Heaving upward with all his might, he managed to get the door open while causing the car to rock only slightly. Scuttling back over Giles’ inert form, Xander climbed up from the depths of the car. Leaning back into the wreck, he tried to heave Giles up by the shoulders, but he was too heavy to be lifted vertically in this position. Losing his grip on the librarian, Xander stumbled back against the car, causing it to rock alarmingly. This was no good he realized, scrambling back up the hill a few feet. He needed help.

 ****

Angel cursed fluently under his breath as he circled back through the trees to approach the gate another way. He had wanted his minions to see him get the best of Buffy. Now they were scattered, several of them killed or worse, badly burned. He didn’t need more convalescents on his hands. He had Spike for that. He was supposed to be running a vampire court, not a fucking charity hospital. He made a mental note to move both Willow and her furry little friend to the top of his hit list.

In the meantime, audience or no, nothing was going to stop him from having a little fun with Buffy. Creeping along the edge of the high stone wall, working his way back towards the gate, Angel kept an eye out for his lover. He could smell her sent in the air. Vaguely, he wondered if she had disposed of Rosenberg yet, not that it really mattered. He had already served his primary purpose in keeping Buffy occupied for a couple of crucial days. He was exceeding expectations by luring her here tonight. It would be nice if he could be available to pay a visit to his wife and daughter later, but you can’t have everything.

When he reached the open gate, Angel trailed a hand lazily around the Star of David. It didn’t burn him like the cross and for some reason that was hard to define he had always found this both reassuring and amusing. But this time something was different. His hand was not burned, but he pulled back against his own volition as if he had been. There was a change in the quality of the air. Something still and powerful brooded watchfully within those gates. Something that had been disturbed from a long rest.

Scanning the cemetery for a glimpse of the unseen power, Angel found his eye arrested by the sight of a white marble statue. It was the figure of a woman in a following robe, her piercing gaze aimed directly at the gate. She glowed iridescent in the moonlight.

There was no moonlight.

Feeling ridiculous, Angel tried to assure himself that the prickling he felt along his scalp was no more than superstition. Besides, even if there was something real and powerful within the cemetery, he too was real and powerful. He could deal. Not allowing himself to think about it any further, Angel flung himself through the open gate. He was flung back again.

The Statue was becoming brighter by the second, now indisputably lit from within. Her hair and her robe were no longer frozen in an imitation of movement. The marble was actually flowing. In her eyes, there was a glow of a different kind begging to grow. Shrieking with rage and horror, Angel pulled the collar of his jacket up over his head and scrambled for the treeline. He just had time to curl into a ball, his face in the dirt, when the sudden burst of sunlight filled the night sky.

If anyone who knew Daniel Osborne could have seen his face at that moment, they would have been sure the world was coming to an end. Oz’s eyes widened by increments to twice their normal size. His mouth hung slightly open as he watched the field of scattered vampires ignite like so many birthday candles. It lasted only seconds, but in those seconds was contained all the light and hope of a bright new day.

Buffy and Ira stopped dead still in their struggle. One of her hands was still buried deep in his chest where she had been searching for his misplace heart. They stared at one another in disbelief. Flames began to dance along his skin. Strange flames. Pale flames. Cold flames. With a shriek and a wisp of smoke, the demon was burned out of him. There before Buffy’s eyes,in the glow of what now seemed nothing more than ordinary moonlight, his face a mask of pure serenity, lay the body of Ira Rosenberg. Buffy was holding his heart in her hand. She released it, leaving it in his chest where it belonged. Her arm was covered in his blood. She wiped the blood onto Ira’s torn white robes, leaving it where it belonged as well.

Heaving herself, up from the coffin, Buffy shut the lid behind her and scrambled up to the edge of the grave. She peered over the side, searching for the source of the mysterious light. There was nothing unearthly that she could see. Perhaps someone, somewhere had preformed a spell on Dr. Rosenberg’s behalf. Perhaps his Rabbi actually knew how to pray for the soul effectively. Or maybe, Buffy realized, it was something about this place. It was called the Star of David. What was the sun but a star after all? Shivering, Buffy crawled up out of the grave, slipped back into her jacket and began filling in the earth with her shovel. Moments later, Oz joined her and they worked once again in silence. All she really knew was that one way or another, a miracle had happened. The body and soul of Ira Rosenberg were at rest.

****

The lightning caught Xander by surprise. It couldn’t have been nearby because he never saw a bolt of electricity, but it was bright. Strangely, it left him with the feeling that a storm was lifting, although the night so far had been calm. He stood stock still on the hillside between the road and the capsized car gazing up at the sky for a full three minutes. He waited for the sound of thunder, but it never came. His unfulfilled anticipation left him with a strange mixture of hope and confusion. He felt as though something important had happened, but he didn’t know what it was.

Whatever it was, he was forced to admit, it didn’t change the dire circumstances in which he now found himself. He couldn’t afford to gaze up at the sky any longer. He had to find help to get Giles out of that car. Scrambling up to the road was harder than he would have thought. The hillside was covered with a mixture of sandy soil and small, lose stones that made it hard to get a firm footing. He sipped back down twice, almost losing his balance and sliding into the valley below. Finally, he crisscrossed his way up by a rout that still had all of its trees standing, reaching the road a few yards west of the crash, nearer the cemetery side than the back-to-town side of the huge, sweeping curve.

He stood undecided a moment, not knowing which way to walk, afraid to walk either way in case he couldn’t find his way back to this place in the dark. He longed for the sight of headlights, which could mean Buffy, or at least help of some kind. He dreaded the sight of headlights, which more than likely would mean vampires. Finally, he made a decision. Although the night was cool, he removed the long-sleeved shirt that he was wearing open like a jacket, and stood shivering in a plain white tee. He tied the shirt to a branch near the gap in the trees where the Citron could be easily seen by anyone shining a flashlight down slope. He didn’t worry that marking the site would make it any easier for the vampires to find. The smell of blood would lead them there, like sharks.

Once again, Xander had second thoughts about leaving, even to find help. What if the vampires came back and found Giles helpless and alone? Then again... what if they came back and found Xander _and_ Giles still effectively alone and more or less helpless? It was an insoluble problem, even if he had had all the time in the world to think about it. Either course of action could cost either Giles or Xander his life. Either could be construed later as heroism or cowardice, depending on how it turned out. The fact was, he didn’t have all the time in the world. He needed to make a choice. He made an easy, familiar one. He set off to find Buffy.

****

The process of filling in the grave went a lot faster than digging it up. Slayer strength was highly useful for pushing a huge mound of dirt into an open pit. Within a very few minutes, Buffy and Oz looked at one another and, without even the need for a nod, began walking back towards the van. Nearly to the gate, Oz turned and looked at something. Buffy followed his gaze. There in the midst of the headstones stood the figure of a tall, slender woman in white marble.

Her long hair was frozen in the moment of being blown back from her face be an unfelt wind. There was something unsettlingly familiar about the shape of her face, particularly around the eyes, which seemed to be looking right at Buffy. Oz must have felt it too, because he stopped in his tracks and began walking back towards the statue. Buffy did the same. The resemblance was not uncanny. Her chin was not the same. Her mouth was not the same. Her nose was not _exactly_ the same. But as the two teens stood and gazed up at the marble goddess, there was no denying the fact that they were looking into the eyes of Willow Rosenberg.

At the base of the statue, below her bare feet, was inscribed the name ‘Rachel Gardien’. On the feet themselves were carved two symbols. On her right foot was the Star of David. On her left, it’s unique lines and curves etched in Buffy’s mind by the cares of another lifetime, was a particular interpretation of the cross forever associated with the work of Josephus DuLac.

Buffy shivered. “Come on,” she said to Oz, “I’ve got to get home.”

“Yeah...” said Oz vaguely as if he were only partly aware of Buffy’s presence, like one who hears a sound from the waking world filtering through into his dreams, but he turned and followed her back to the van.

****

Headlights. Standing on the narrow shoulder of the blacktop road, looking around the next bend, coming from the direction of the cemetery, Xander definitely saw headlights. What did headlights mean again? Either Buffy or Vampires. No way to know. If they were vampires, they could smell him hiding there in the dark. If it was Buffy and he missed her...Xander began sweeping his flashlight frantically across the road. Would that even be seen by a car, within the glow of its own headlights? The vehicle was approaching quickly now. It would be here any second. Xander stepped out into the middle of the road, waving his arms. The van screeched to a halt. Oz’s van. Thank God.

Oz braked hard, but he still had to swerve a little to keep from running over Xander. He was bruised and filthy, sanding in the middle of the road waving frantically with a flashlight. There was blood on his hands. He rushed to the passenger door of the van, just as Buffy bounded out. Buffy knew he hadn’t walked here all the way from the Gallery. Something about the way his face was scraped and bruised said not ‘fight’ but ‘car crash.’ Buffy had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Where’s Giles?” she asked.

Xander jerked his head towards the shoulder of the road on the downhill side, “down here” he said, starting in that direction, “about twenty feet from the road.” He scrambled down the hill trough a car length gap in the foliage, edged with splintered trunks and stumps. Buffy followed. Oz put on his emergency flashers and repositioned the van so that it was closer to the spot and blocked less of the road.

Buffy’s throat tightened when she saw the car. Giles gray Citron was lying on its side, supported by nothing but a single thick tree. The passenger door was ajar, standing strait up, like the escape hatch on a space capsule. Giles was inside.

Xander must have seen the look on Buffy’s face. “He’s alive,” he assured her as they scrambled down to the wreck. “At least, he was ten minutes ago.” Something about the way he said this was not altogether reassuring. When they reached the car and peered in, Buffy could see why. The beam of the flashlight fell across Giles unconscious form. He was more or less seated on the driver’s side door with his upper body slumped in the angle made by the back and bottom of the bench style front seat. Xander had obviously tried and failed to pull him vertically through the passenger door. There was blood all over his face and clothes as well as everywhere else in the vehicle. His head had been bandaged with some kind of a pink cloth, tied in place with what looked like a white nylon strap.

Buffy leaned down through the opening and lifted his head gently to check the pulse in his neck. Her eyes widened when she saw what was really holding his bandage in place. It was so absurd that, even under the circumstances, she could have laughed, but then she would have had to have wept. Instead, she stuffed everything down, trying to keep it cool as she felt for his pulse. There it was, weak, but steady. Her heart resumed beating. She could breathe again.

Suddenly, Buffy was filled with knowledge, with clarity. He was not a father to her, not a mentor, not a friend, not a lover or a not-a-lover, he was Giles, just Giles, the only one in the world, and he was precious to her, uncategorizable, irreplaceable. She loved him with a love that didn’t have to ask what kind of love it was, that didn’t care at this moment what she needed or wanted from him, but only what he needed from her. Tears welled up in her eyes, but there was no time for tears.

Turing to Xander, Buffy said, “I’m gonna lean in and pull him out. I need you to sit right here and put pressure on my feet so that I can’t slip and fall in, okay?” Xander nodded and did as she asked. Buffy placed Giles’ facing her with his head and right arm over her left shoulder, his left arm over her right shoulder, locked her arms around his chest and pulled. Out he came, dead weight, like a corpse, but he was breathing. The car tipped slightly forward. The tree made a cracking sound. Buffy and Xander scrambled backwards up the slope, lugging Giles with them. The back half of the car flipped up into the space they had just vacated and the vehicle pin-wheeled off of the breaking tree and down the hillside. Xander screamed. “Holly crap!” Buffy shouted.

“Wow,” said Oz, looking down from above. Then he turned around and opened the van doors so that Buffy and Xander could put Giles in the back. Buffy knelt by Giles head, Xander by his feet as Oz got behind the wheel.

“We need to get him to—” Xander began.

“Sunnydale General,” Oz concluded, “Already on my way.”

“Ohhhh,” Giles groaned. Then he murmured something that might or might not have been ‘Buffy’ or ‘mercy’ or any other two syllable word ending in a long E.

“Giles!” Buffy gasped, tears spilling down her cheeks now, “I’m here, I’m here, can you hear me? Giles can you hear me? Hold on, please hold on!”Xander held out the flashlight to Buffy. He was going to ask her to shine it in Giles’ eyes, to see if they reacted. Something stopped him. It was as if Buffy and Giles were alone in the van, like he wasn’t there at all.

Buffy cradled Giles head in her lap. “Buffy,” he murmured a little more clearly, “the... fire... we have to get... out.”

Buffy put the back her hand to Giles’ forehead, “You’re burning up,” she murmured.

“Yes!” Giles agreed hysterically, trying feebly, but frantically to rise, “The Fire! The Fire! Jenny! Jenny! We have to get out!”

“Shussssshhhh,” whispered Buffy, rubbing his cheek soothingly, “It’s all right. It’s alright. You’re safe now. Everyone’s safe.” But her face was etched with pain and fear. “He has a high fever,” she explained to Xander. “How much further?” she shouted to Oz.

“Ten minutes the fastest way,” He replied, “That’s if we don’t stop at your house.”

“Don’t stop,” said Buffy.

“Buff,” Xander pointed out gently, “you’re not going to be much good to him in jail.”

Buffy cursed. He was right. Infuriatingly so. “Go straight on,” she reiterated to Oz, “just... let me out when you’re as close to my house as you’re going to get.”

“Buffy!” Giles wailed, panicked, “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me here! Please!”

“I’m not. Shush, I’m not, it’s alright. It’s alright.”

The bra cup bow flopped absurdly on the side of his head as he thrashed restlessly on the floor of the van. She couldn’t let him go into a public hospital, in what might be his last moments on Earth looking like that. “Oz,” she called “Do you have a first aid kit? Bandages... anything?”

“No,” he said, “but we’ll be there in five minutes...”

“Xander,” Buffy asked, starting to panic, “Do you have belt?”

“Yeah, Buff, but it’s not bleeding now, I think we should leave it alone.”

“I am not sending him into an ER full of people with my bra tied around his head!” Buffy insisted hotly. Xander was so stunned by her intensity that he had his belt off and was watching her rewrap the wound, telling her how to adjust the belt to keep the pressure on, before he even realized what she’d said. He didn’t have time to ask her about it if he’d wanted too. Moments later, Oz stopped at a red light about eight blocks from Buffy’s house and told her to get out.

Giles held on to Buffy’s hand and begged her not to go. She forced his hand into Xander’s instead and bounded away into the night. Giles’ grip was tight and strong, which Xander guessed was a good sign though it wasn’t doing his hand any good. He tried whispering words of comfort, but it didn’t seem to work nearly as well for him as it had for Buffy. Giles was physically shaking now. Xander just hoped he wasn’t having some kind of a seizure. There was nothing he could do.

To distract himself, he picked up the bloodstained bra in his free hand. Back at the car, he’d assumed it was Miss Calendar’s. He supposed it still could be. Buffy’s claiming it could have been a slip of the tongue, but it struck him as an odd slip to make. It seemed like a girl would probably recognize her own bra, and the front clasp kind was not nearly common enough in his admittedly limited experience. Casting an eye towards the front of the van to make sure Oz wasn’t looking, he put his nose into one of the cups and sniffed. It _smelled_ like Buffy: her perfume, her shampoo, her sweat, all layered underneath the stronger scents of blood and smoke. There hadn’t been any smoke in the car crash, had there? Had Miss Calendar even worn perfume? He tried to remember, but he hadn’t been in the habit of sniffing her.

The van had, stopped. Xander hurriedly shoved the bra behind him then let it fall to the floor. Oz raised an opinionated eyebrow, but said only “Stay with him, I’ll get someone,” and ran through the Ambulance bay door into the hospital.

****

By the time Joyce finally walked though her kitchen door at 7:05, she was mentally exhausted and sick with dread. Ordinarily she would have called the police, but things being as they were...“Oh, hey, Mom,” Joyce looked up to see Buffy coming into the kitchen in her bathrobe, hair wrapped in a towel, “Are you just now getting in?” Both her voice and her smile were faltering. Joyce was sure her daughter was hiding something.

“Buffy!” she demanded breathlessly, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Well, let’s see...” said Buffy with as much attitude as she could muster using anxiety for fuel, “when I woke up this morning I was in jail, then I went to school, then I spent all afternoon at the _library_ hanging out with nobody and then Mr. Giles brought me home. Where the hell have you been, Mom?”

“Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady!” Joyce all but shouted, “I have been worried sick! I called you five times!”

“Oh,” said Buffy, dropping the attitude, letting her remorse show for having to speak that way to her mother. “I didn’t check the machine yet,” which was true, “I’ve been in the shower,” which was only true of about the last three minutes.

“For an hour and a half?” Joyce demanded, quickly spotting the problem.

“Has it been that long?” Buffy asked. “I...uh... I must have dosed off... in the shower...I...you know I sit down in the shower...sometimes...it’s relaxing.”

Joyce gave her a hard look, but seemed to be willing to chalk this one up to the weirdness that was Buffy. Then, something new seemed to strike her. “Mr. Giles dropped you off?”

“Yeah,” said Buffy, seeming inordinately troubled by the question, “Uh...didn’t he... didn’t he tell you?”

“No,” said Joyce, “He never showed up. I had to call Triple A.”

“That’s not like him,” said Buffy. “Something must have happened. We should check the hospitals, make sure he’s okay.” She seemed genuinely worried, even excessively so. Yet, at the same time, her words were stilted, rehearsed.

Joyce had a terrible feeling that something had happened to the poor man and that her daughter knew exactly what it was. She wanted to shake the girl, or maybe slap some sense into her. “Buffy,” she said in as stern and calm a voice as she could manage, “have you been with Angel tonight? Did he do something to Mr. Giles?”

“What?” Buffy gasped, “Mom, how can you ask me that?” She seemed genuinely shocked by the accusation, which just went to show how far out of touch she was with reality as everyone else around her perceived it.

“What else am I supposed to think, Buffy?” Joyce demanded. “Mr. Giles was with you at the library at 5:30. He said he would bring you here, and here you are, although God alone knows what you’ve been up to for the last hour. Now he’s disappeared off the face of the Earth, and you’re standing here, scared to death, trying to enlist me to find out if he’s dead or alive!”

Buffy didn’t know how to respond. She felt about two inches tall. Her mother thought she was a slut and a liar and the next thing to a murderer. The truth was, she wasn’t that far wrong, though there certainly were mitigating circumstances on all three counts of which she was not aware. But none of that mattered as much as her desperate need to know that Giles was alive, that he was getting the help he needed, that he was going to be okay.“Please, Mom,” Buffy begged, unable to hold back her tears, “just call the hospital and see if he’s there.”

“Oh, I will,” Joyce assured her, “and if I find out he’s been attacked, my next call is going to be to the police. And don’t you look at me like that!” she fumed though Buffy was not aware of giving her any kind of a look, “I may not be the best mother in the world Buffy, but by God, I thought I raised you better than this, and if I didn’t yet, I’m going to starting today!”

Buffy nodded meekly. Not knowing what to make of such an unprecedented response, Joyce ignored it. Buffy sat down at the kitchen table and cried quietly while her mother looked up the number and dialed. Knowing how hospitals usually were about releasing information, Joyce implied without stating that she was Giles’ girlfriend. For a weird moment it occurred to Buffy that they probably would have made a pretty good couple. A laugh burbled up through her tears. Joyce looked at her like it might be time to padlock the drawer with the knives in it but kept her phone voice calm and steady. They still wouldn’t tell her anything. Joyce hung up, cursed and said to Buffy with gentle urgency, “Honey, just tell me what happened. Whatever it is... we have to tell the police.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Buffy insisted. “I just have a...feeling.”Joyce sighed. She could have sobbed. Omens, premonitions, prophetic dreams, unexplainable feelings of dread; all of these had been part and parcel of Buffy’s delusions when she’d had her first psychotic break almost two years ago. It was all starting again. There was no telling whether anything had really happened to Mr. Giles or not. Maybe he had simply been delayed and arrived to find that she’d already left. She was on the point of calling his home when the phone rang. Buffy tried to snatch it from under her nose but Joyce got a hold of it just in time.

“Hello?” she said.

“Mrs. Summers?” said an unfamiliar male voice, young but not a child.

“Yes,” she confirmed.

“Is Buffy there?”

“Who is this?” asked Joyce.

“Oz,” the young man said.

“If this is about Willow Rose—” Joyce started in.

“It’s not,” Oz assured her, “It’s about Mr. Giles. And Xander. They’ve been in a car wreck. They’re in the hospital.”

 


	7. Lines and Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the days since the crash Buffy has only grown more sure of her feelings, but what about Giles? And what about that other little problem they might have? Willow and Amy explore magic and other dangerous games for two players. Meanwhile back at the Hellmouth, Drusilla has plans for some black medicine of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter Marks the Beginning of Part II: "What We Make"

Sunnydale, CA. March 3, 1998

 

“Is this really necessary?” Willard asked. He shifted his limbs awkwardly and felt of his throat as if trying to understand where that gravelly voice was coming from.

“Yes,” Amy assured him, “it is. I could use a glamour, but then if we get separated, perceptive people would start to see through it. This is much more dependable.”

“It just feels so...unnatural. I mean how do people walk around with their... attributes dangling all over the place. It’s embarrassing.”

“I guess they get used to it,” Amy suggested philosophically. “Anyway, do you want to see Giles in the hospital or don’t you? I mean, you said it yourself, it’s the perfect disguise.”

Willard let out a pensive sigh. At least, coming from Willow, it would have been a sigh. From him, it sounded more like a horse snorting. Amy was right as usual. As it was, the only people Willow was allowed to see from Sunnydale High were Amy and ‘Daniel’. If word got back to her mother that she had been seen visiting a member of Buffy’s inner circle, she wouldn’t even be allowed that.“Alright,” he said resolutely, “I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. I just want to look in on Mom one more time before we go.”

“Will you relax?” said Amy dismissively, “It’s just a Needle’s Eye Sleeping Spell. I use it on my dad all the time. It’s nothing.”

“Yeah,” Willard laughed nervously, “It’s nothing.” But it didn’t feel like nothing.

“Just remember,” Amy explained reassuringly, “when you want her to wake up, you kiss her on the forehead, or the cheek, doesn’t matter, and you say...”

“Dear mother of mine, come back to me,” Willard recited dutifully.

“Exactly. See, what could go wrong?”

“You want that alphabetically or by order of magnitude?” said Willard, attempting levity.

“Come on,” Amy cajoled, “you’ve been talking about how much you want to do this for a week. This is the first day we’ve been alone in the house without that creepy Rabbi hanging around all the time, and it’s the last day too, because starting tomorrow you’ll be stuck over at Kent Prep until five o’clock every day.”

“You’re right,” said Willard resolutely. “It’s now or never.” Extending his arm to Amy with a flourish, exactly the way his (which is to say Willow’s) father would have, he added, “Shall we, my dear?”

“Yes, let’s” said Amy, taking his arm with a mischievous look in her eyes. “We can take Sheila’s car.”

****

As Buffy walked the anti-septic white hallways of Sunnydale General Hospital on her way to Giles’ room, she couldn’t quite shake the same creepy feeling she always had in hospitals. It felt like death was stalking her. It hadn’t helped that she’d had to kill some kind of an invisible monster on this very floor less than a week ago. She kept thinking there might be more of them lurking about. Hospitals were all about death. Except of course, she remembered uneasily, for the parts that weren’t.

Since the night of Giles’ car wreck, neither he nor Buffy had said a word about the possibility that she could be carrying his child. She guessed he’d assumed she’d taken the second dose of pills as planned and that ‘better late than never’ had turned out to be a valid hypothesis. The truth was, though she couldn’t say for a fact what had happened to those three little pills, she had a pretty good idea. The last time she had been sure that they were in her pocket was when she was digging up Ira Rosenberg’s grave. She had taken off her jacket, tossed in onto the pile of dirt. The same pile of dirt she had pushed back into his grave. What was she supposed to do? Go back for them? Not for all the garlic in Romania. She just had to not think about it Buffy told herself for the millionth time. Either she would get her period this week, or at least by this weekend... or she wouldn’t, and if she didn’t... well maybe she would get it on Monday. And as long as she was not thinking about it, she could just not think about that other thing too, the thing that had almost nothing to do with being pregnant, the thing about how she felt, and Giles almost certainly didn’t.

Buffy put on what she hoped was a confident smile as she entered Giles’ room. “Hey,” she said by way of general greeting.

“Hey there, Buffy,” said Xander, “check out the new and improved Giles.”

Giles sat up a little against his pillows. His mouth looked annoyed, but his eyes were smiling. “Hello, Buffy,” he said.

“Ah,” said Buffy, “no more nose thingy, very becoming.”

“Yes,” Giles agreed, “now if I could just get these bloody bandages off of my head, I really would feel like a new man.”

“One step at a time,” interjected a portly young nurse as she came in to take his vital signs yet again.

“Is this really necessary?” he complained.

“Yes,” said the nurse cheerfully.

“I don’t see why such a fuss has the be made just because of—”

“— double pneumonia and a massive concussion?” Buffy concluded.

“Neither of which I have any more,” Giles pointed out.

“You still have the cracked skull,” The nurse pointed out cheerfully as she went on about her work, smiling benignly.

“So, Buffy,” Xander asked when she was gone at last, “is your mom around?”

“No,” Buffy informed him, “she actually let me come on my own. She just listened to a new book on tape called ‘Sharing Earned Trust With Your Troubled Teen,’ or something like that.”

“Ah,” said Xander, “God bless good old fashioned fad parenting.”

“As long as she doesn’t pick up anything with the words ‘tough love’ in the title,” Buffy confirmed, “we’re all kinds of good. I mean, there’s all these hoops I have to jump through with charts and check boxes and everything, but all it really boils down to is doing my homework on time and being there when my Mom get’s home at 5:30. It doesn’t even really interfere with my patrols that much because she’s usually asleep by 10:00 anyway. I take a nap every night after dinner. I haven’t been this well rested in years. Honestly, I thought things would be way worse for way longer.

“I think talking to the new lawyer has calmed her down a lot too. He thinks he can work things so that I can finish my probation or whatever and get it expunged before I have to apply to colleges, if I, you know, want to go to college. Plus, it helps that Mom actually kind of thinks I had a premonition about your car wreck, so she treats me a little bit less like a crazy person. ”

“Yes, well,” said Giles, “just be certain to avoid the police on these late night patrols. You are still under court supervision you know.”

“Ugh,” said Buffy, “How could I forget! If Mom ever goes a day without mentioning it, Snyder finds a way to remind me. This morning he told me he felt safer having the Sadie Hawkins Dance on Friday knowing that they wouldn’t have to accommodate quote, ‘whatever fugitive from justice,’ unquote, I might have asked.”

“Ah yes,” said Giles disdainfully, “That’s Snyder to the toes. I will be glad to get out of here, of course, but I can’t say I’m looking forwards to dealing with him again.”

“Well, he’s not happy with you either,” Xander pointed out. “I heard him talking to Mr. Beach yesterday. He said that the next teacher that gets killed or injured at Sunnydale High is getting a letter of reprimand in his file.”

“Well, that’s bloody brilliant,” Giles laughed, “Ought to put a right stop to it.”Xander laughed right along with him. He didn’t know if it was getting hit on the head, or the knowledge that he had almost died or what, but Giles seemed....different, less uptight, more like a normal person. In spite of being bed ridden, he seemed... younger somehow. Although he was oddly twitchy around Buffy’s mom, for the most part he seemed happier. He seemed like he could even take a joke.

“So,”said Xander, deciding to test the limits of his theory, “Buffy, now that Giles is all awake and sane and able to speak up for himself, and now that we finally get to see you without your mom hanging around the whole time, I’ve been dying to ask you about something.”

“Which is?” asked Buffy apprehensively.

“How exactly did your bra get in Giles’ car in the first place?”

“What the devil—!?” Giles began, sitting bolt straight in bed and almost getting to his feet before remembering he didn’t really have that much on in the way of clothing.

“How did my...?” Buffy looked from one to the other. Both were expecting and explanation from her with varying degrees of intensity. “You know...” she said “that’s really a funny story actually... You see,” she explained to Giles, “Xander found my bra in your car after the wreck and used it to tie a bandage around your head.”

Giles was stunned, “You mean you brought me in here with...with—!”

“No, no,” Xander clarified, “Buffy made me take the bra off in the van. We used my belt instead... what I can’t figure out is... how it got there in the first place.”

“Well,” Giles agreed nervously, “as Buffy says, it’s really... really a very funny story...”Giles reaction was so comical that Xander had trouble keeping even a semi-straight face. He looked as if he actually expected to be accused to doin’ it with Buffy in the back of his crappy old car. In fact Xander was tempted to suggest exactly that, but he was afraid Giles might actually have stroke or a spell or something.

“Yes...” said Buffy, acting almost as nervous, “funny story... you know... you tell it so much better than I do...”

For a moment Giles looked at Buffy as though he could have murdered her right then and there, then he softened and acknowledged, “Well, I suppose I am the uh... the better story teller...as it were. Well let’s see, this would have had to have been before... before the police... Oh, yes! Buffy was injured, you see, and she had used the... uh... thing to tie as sort of a bandage... the um... sweater... thing around her... her leg not unlike what you did, you see.”

Xander waited for him to continue. It never happened. “That’s the...um... very funny story?” Xander grinned. Buffy nodded solemnly.

“Yes, erm...quite,” Giles confirmed, looking positively pained with embarrassment.

“And that was the...uh...the funnier way of telling it?” Xander persisted.

“Well,” said Giles acerbically, getting to a state of annoyance that was no longer amusing, even from the outside, “I guess you had to be there.”

“Okay, okay,” said Xander, more or less apologetically, “I mean I knew it was something like that. It’s not like I really thought...”

“You know what?” said Buffy, sounding more than a little peeved herself, “I think we’ve talked enough about my bra for one day.”

“Oh, darn,” said a tall, good-looking,red-headed guy standing in the doorway. “I always miss the best conversations.” Buffy didn’t recognize him, but he walked right on into the room and Amy Madison came right behind him, so she figured he must be another Sunnydale student.

“Don’t worry,” Xander assured him, standing to shake his hand, “It wasn’t as good as she’s making it sound.”

Buffy looked closer. He was athletic though not beefy, like a baseball or basketball player. Despite that and his deep voice, there was something hesitant, vulnerable about him. She got the distinct impression that he was gay, although his baggy high-water khakis and oversized polo shirt certainly didn’t fit the stereotype. Everything about him screamed ‘I’m here, I’m queer, I’m not used to it.’ When Xander touched his hand, something in his pale green eyes seemed to be crying out... “Holy God!” Buffy exclaimed with something like true horror, “You’re Willow!”

“Shush! No! I’m Willard,” Willard hissed.

“Yeeh!” said Xander, jumping back about a foot.

“Xander,” said Willard, gently exacerbated, “It’s not contagious,”

“Good Lord!” said Giles, “You mean you gi—er...kids actually...”

“Uh-huh,” Amy beamed proudly.

“See, Willow’s mom is being pretty much a b-i-t-c-h and won’t let her anywhere near you guys...” Willard started to explain.

“You mean to tell me,” Giles interrupted incredulously, “You did this to yourself merely to...to sneak out...and...and”

“See you in the hospital, since I won’t see you at school ever again,” Willard pointed out glumly.

Giles looked torn. “I’m touched by your... concern for me,” he said, “really I am. But magic is powerful. It’s dangerous. It’s not something one plays around with.”

“Well” said Amy haughtily, “It’s not playing around if you know what you’re doing.”

“Humph,” Giles snorted, “Am I to understand that you imagine yourself some kind of expert on the subject?”Now _this_ was the old Giles, Xander thought, glumly. Oh well, not so uptight Giles was fun while he lasted. He hoped he hadn’t ruined it for everyone with the whole Buffy’s bra thing.

“Excuse, you!” said Willard in a way that was oddly Cordeliaesque for someone who was both a guy and Willow, “Rude much? We did this for you, and anyway, Amy really does know what she’s doing. And she’s smart and funny and she could really help with the, you know, Scooby type stuff if you guys would give her a chance. And... this way... I can still go out after six o’clock.”

“Three weeks ago,” Giles pointed out, with a dismissive wave in Xander’s direction, “she had the three of you (and every other woman in town) falling at _his_ feet.”

“Hey!” said Xander. He didn’t have anything to follow it up with, because the statement was completely true, he just didn’t like being referred to that way.

“Okay, look,” said Buffy, “could everyone please just stop snapping at each other. We’re all here and alive, and several times in recent memory we have all had chances to not be either of those things, and if we’re going to stand here and list all of the wrong or stupid or dangerous things everyone has done in the last three months and try to figure out who’s fault they all were, we could literally be here all night without having any fun whatsoever, so could we please just maybe give it a rest and try to enjoy one another’s present, not-dead company?”

As the sound of Buffy’s voice died away, she felt herself flushing with embarrassment under the wide eyes of every other person in the room. Her rambling speech had left them speechless, and apparently abashed. The ringing silence was soon replaced by a general murmur of apology and forgiveness. Buffy smiled a little sheepishly as Xander offered to crown her Queen of All Ranters and the others murmured their assent.

“So,” said Willard, after a minimum of small talk, “any more news on Angel? His... status, I mean.”

Buffy shook her head, “Oz was sure he saw him there at one point, but then he took off before... whatever happened happened. Oz told you about that right? About... your Dad?”

“Yeah,” Willard acknowledged uneasily, “I just wish I could be sure... what it meant.”

“I was there,” Buffy assured him, “it—the light, whatever it was—burned the demon out of him and left him... clean. Trust me, wherever he is, he’s at peace.”Willard nodded and thanked Buffy for this news, but he seemed less than convinced. She guessed he (she?) would need some time to process what had happened.

“What about Angel?” Xander asked, trying to move the conversation past its current state of uncomfortable intensity. “No sign of him at all?” It had not been the best topic choice for his purpose.

“No,” Buffy confirmed gloomily, “not him or Drusilla or any of their bunch. In fact, overall vamp activity is way down.”

“So maybe the whole nest went up in flames,” said Amy hopefully.

Buffy had a gut feeling that this was not so, but couldn’t really articulate why. “Nah,” she said, for want of something better to say, “that’d be too easy.” Somehow, she just couldn’t quite credit the possibility that Angel could have died without her knowing it.

Mercifully, the conversation moved on, ranging widely, and for a while, Buffy really was enjoying everyone’s present, not-dead company. But as the afternoon wore on and she realized she had to be home soon, she wished the crowd would thin out some. She had been wanting to talk to Giles alone for days. But, between Xander’s teasing about her bra and the lengths Willow had gone to be there with her friends, not to mention what Amy had done to help her, Buffy didn’t have the nerve to hint to any of them that they should leave so that she could be alone with Giles. Finally, about a quarter to five, Xander said, “Well, I guess I’d better get going,” then spoiled it by adding, “Come on Buff, I’ll give you a ride.”

“I...uh...think I’ll hang here just...you know, a few more minutes,” Buffy suggested.

“Oh, okay,” said Xander, sitting back down, “I guess I can wait a few more minutes, but not too long because I have a date with Cordelia, and I’m supposed to be at my house for her to pick me up.”

Giles sighed tiredly. Evidently, he’d been waiting for at least Xander if not more of the gang to leave. “Actually,”he said, “why don’t all of you... children run along. If I’m to be... released from this...place in the morning, I need to get some rest.”

“Okay,” said Willard, “If you don’t mind though, Buffy, why don’t Amy and I give you a ride home. We wanted to ask you about some...uh,” he laughed nervously, “girl stuff.”

Xander shrugged, “Okay, ‘girls’,” he said, using finger quote marks, “I’ll see you around.”At that moment, Buffy wished with all her heart that she had left with him thirty seconds earlier. She didn’t have any trouble imagining what kind of ‘girl stuff’ Willard wanted to ask her about. She’d just have to play dumb, she decided. Surely he wouldn’t press the point in front of Amy if Buffy clearly hinted that she still didn’t want her to know anything about it.

Although it took some maneuvering in the small, crowded room, Buffy managed to be the last one out the door. She turned in the doorway and looked back at Giles. Her heart ached. She could see in his eyes that his did too, though whether it was because he loved her or because he didn’t love her, she couldn’t say. “Buffy,” he said tenderly, after a long moment, “take care of yourself.” He said it the way you say it when you’re not going to see someone for a long time, but then he added, “I’ll see you at school in a day or two.” Buffy nodded, not trusting herself to speak. More confused than ever, she turned and followed Amy and Willard down the hallway, moving at a brisk pace to catch up.

“God have mercy on a miserable sinner,” Rupert murmured, closing his eyes and lying back on his pillows. Like yesterday and the day before, watching Buffy walk out of his room felt like watching her walk out of his life. He wanted to grab her, to stop her, to keep her forever. But she was not walking out of his life. He would see her again in a day or two, and every day or almost every day thereafter. Until one day he wouldn’t. And every day, until that day, he would continue to make the same hard, painful choice, over and over again. Every day, he had to let her go. He wondered how many days of this torment he could actually endure before it literally killed him. Experience suggested that, despite a deep gut feeling to the contrary, the true answer was probably an infinite number. Experience also tended to suggest that his feelings for Buffy would fade slowly over time, eventually amounting to nothing more than an occasional stab of regret. Once again, a feeling in his twisted, knotted guts said otherwise.

Rupert took a deep breath and let it out again, trying to send some of his anguish and confusion with it. When, only a week and a half ago, he and Buffy had confessed their lack romantic of love to one another, he’d thought she meant it,and he’d tried very hard to mean it too. Though there had been no denying the sexual tension between them in the days that followed, though he had felt stirrings of a more poetic justification for the same, it had seemed like something that would pass. But since the crash, somehow, everything had changed. When he looked into Buffy’s eyes, he knew what she wanted from him and what she was willing to give him in return as surely as he knew he had no right to take what she had to offer, as surely as he also knew that he could never again be content without it.

“Why so glum, Chum,” asked Dr. Heigle cheerfully poking his head through the door.

Giles smiled ruefully, “wallowing in a morass of my own making, how are you?”

“Basking in the light of love and life as usual,” he responded without looking up from Giles’ chart. He seemed like he meant it too.

“Must be nice,” Giles mused.

“Well,” said the doctor, finally looking up, “at least you’re going home tomorrow. Do you want me to release you to work or keep you off through the end of the week?”

Giles sighed. “I’m tempted,” he admitted, “but I’m sure I’m behind enough as it is. Let’s see... tomorrow’s Wednesday, I’d better start back Thursday if you think it would be alright.”

“Suit yourself,” said the doctor.

“Well in that case,” Giles started to joke, “I’d like you to order me to spend a week in Tahiti with...” He’d meant to say ‘with a beautiful young woman’ but his levity failed him and he let the sentence die in a sigh, thinking of one particular beautiful young woman he would never be with again, in Tahiti or anywhere else.

“That, my friend,” said the doctor, seeming for once to actually feel his pain, “is something I can’t help you with.”

****

To Buffy’s relief, the elevator was too crowed for Willard to ask her about ‘girl stuff.’When they got to the ground floor, Amy announced her intention to use the bathroom. “Go ahead,” said Willard, shifting uncomfortable from foot to foot, “I’ll just hold—Uh I mean I’ll wait until I get home.” Willard blushed. Buffy thought Amy seemed a little too amused at his embarrassment.

“Buffy?” Amy asked.

“I’m alright,” Buffy assured her, seizing the chance for a preemptive private conversation. They stood a moment in silence, watching Amy walk away. To Buffy’s acute discomfort, Willard seemed a little too absorbed in examining the mechanics of the Amy-walking-away process.

“You want to... look in the gift shop?” he asked nervously, blushing behind the ears in a very guy-like way.

“Yeah,” said Buffy, suddenly feeling even less inclined to talk to her best friend about ‘girl stuff’ in Amy’s absence than in her presence, given that Willow was... not herself at the moment.

But the gift shop, it turned out, was also a cross between a convenience store and a drug store. Willard cut his eyes in the direction of a certain aisle. “Do you think maybe you might need to get one of those?” he asked. The shelves in question contained condoms, K-Y Jelly, remedies for various kinds of itching and two different brands of home pregnancy tests. Buffy considered joking that she didn’t need anything for jock itch, but Willard was still Willow. She felt foolish denying that she knew exactly what he meant.

“Well,” Buffy hedged, “this is only Tuesday. I mean it won’t be twenty-eight days until Thursday, and it won’t be thirty days until Saturday and even thirty days isn’t actually late... I mean sometimes I go thirty-one days... so, I think I’ll just wait.”Willard gave her a very Willow kind of look. Pouting just a little, Buffy picked up two different boxes and started comparing the labels. Both promised 99% accurate results. Both promised results ‘five days sooner’. Neither seemed to mean that you could get both of those things at the same time, but it seemed like you might have to look inside the boxes to get the goods on what they really meant.

“What do you think?” Willard asked.

Buffy put back the test that cost ten dollars and held on to the one that cost eight. “I think...” she said looking up into Willard’s eyes miserably, needing to talk to _someone_ , “I think I’m in love... with Giles.” The look that flashed in Willard’s eyes was not exactly what Buffy expected. It made her almost physically want to flinch away from him. “Wil?” she asked apprehensively, “are you alright?”

“I...guess so,” he said shaking himself a little, “It’s just... I’m not used to these weird new hormones. It’s like my emotions come at me in a totally different way... like in the way where... I get upset, but instead of wanting to cry or needing a hug... I sometime want to... hit people. It’s weird.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, stepping back just a teeny tiny bit, “that is weird.”

“Oh, wait,” Willard tried to reassure her, “you didn’t think I meant... I could never want to hurt _you_ Buffy.” There was something about the way he said it, something about the way he was looking at her. Gears clicked into place in Buffy’s head. She decided to pretend they hadn’t. She would have to have a talk with Amy at school tomorrow about that spell.

Speaking of...“Hey,” said Amy, poking her head into the aisle, “are you going to get that, ‘cause we gotta get going if we’re gonna get you home by 5:30.”

“Oh...uh...” Buffy stammered, “you’re probably wondering why I have this...”

“No,” said Amy, “I kinda figured that out.”

“Oh right... well then, I’ll just go check out... I guess.”

“Okay,” said Amy, “You guys do know that every single person in this entire town knows that you got arrested and what for?”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Willard mumbled.

“And you also know than 98% of anyone who pays attention to anything or knows either of you at all pretty much knows why you did what you got arrested for?”

“Really?” said Buffy skeptically.

“No,” said Amy sarcastically, “everybody at school thinks _Willow_ suddenly decided to become a drug dealer.”

“Hey!” said Willard, drawing a look from both Amy and Buffy. “Well, okay,” he admitted, “I guess I wouldn’t want to be the kind of person people would think that about, but it’s just the way you said it, like people think I’m boring or something, and Buffy, you really need to go pay for that, ‘cause it’s 5:15. Do people think I’m boring?”Buffy, hurried to the counter, grateful to have an excuse not to answer that.

“Well,” said Amy, seeming to give the matter a little thought, “If they do, I’d say they’re behind the times.”

There was a nurse in line behind Buffy, a sour looking, dough-faced woman of about sixty in a traditional white uniform with her hair in a tight bun under her old-fashioned white cap. To say that she gave Buffy a disapproving look would be the height of ironic understatement. It was more a look of scandalized personal betrayal. Well, thought Buffy, at least someone’s shocked.

****

It was 5:35, when Joyce Summers pulled into her garage, just as a car full of teenagers passed on the street behind her, one guy driving two girls, including Buffy. Sighing, she got out and walked into her living room in time to hear her daughter frantically scrambling in through the bedroom window in acute terror of being caught arriving home five minutes late. Joyce felt helpless, and terribly alone. She knew being Buffy’s mother couldn’t always mean being her friend, but shouldn’t it occasionally mean being something other than her jailor?She wanted to go to her daughter, to tell her it was okay, that everyone is a little late sometimes, that she didn’t have to hide or be afraid. But then, five minutes late would turn into ten minutes, then thirty, then an hour. The truth was, as things stood, Buffy’s fear of mean old uncaring Mom was probably the only thing keeping her out of prison. Joyce just had to live with it as best she could.

“Buffy,”she called after giving her a minute to get settled, “come set the table for dinner.”

****

Drusilla smiled in the dark, sniffing the foul air. “Here we are dears,” she said silkily, “home sweet home.” The large bundle cradled in her arms shivered with something that was definitely not joy. She gently swung the curled up creature from side to side, shushing it lovingly, like a fussy baby.

None of the small band of vampires could see one another in the total darkness of that buried chamber, but they were acutely aware of one another by sound and smell. They could hear one another’s trembling bones and chattering teeth. They could smell one another’s fear.

A pace behind Drusilla, at her right hand, Spike leaned on an iron stave he’d brought along for support and protection. He’d been up and about for nearly a week, but was not yet altogether steady on his feet or sure of his strength. “Are you sure this is where you want to be, pet?” he asked, the voice for all those who lacked Drusilla’s leave to be so bold.

“Yeah,” she said with relish. “There’s power here. I like the way it sings in my head.”

Besides Drusilla, none of them liked the power they felt in this place. Edwards, who had actually made his home here once before, liked it even less. Closing his eyes and opening his mind to the space around him, he walked to the nearest of the massive standing candelabras to light it, praying to he-knew-not-what to avoid stumbling over a cross in the darkness. The candles’ dim illumination filled the place with light and shadows. It revealed a tumbled maze of moldering oak and cracked marble. It danced eerily on the stagnant waters of the baptismal pool.

This place had changed little in the sixty-odd years since he’d first lain eye on it, but Edwards had changed a lot. Standing among the elite of the Master’s growing legions, his awe and terror of this hostile, sacred place had been mingled with glad anticipation of imminent triumph over it and the world. He had had courage then, confidence, clarity of purpose. He had been able, as Spike was able now, to put on a human face and a convincing bluff of relaxation. Now, he cowered behind his demonic features in perpetual anticipation of attack by the unseen enemy, like the weak ones he had sneered at back then. All his grand ambitions were gone. His only goal was to keep his head above the waters of oblivion, to continue to exist another year, another day, another hour.

A quick survey of his companions, using all three long range senses, told him that he was easily in the majority in this position. And no wonder. At the height of Spike’s reign, only ten weeks ago, there numbers had swelled to nearly fifty, their greatest strength since the death of the Master. Now they were only seven, even if you counted Angel, which seemed dubious at best. If Edwards were to be honest with himself, he would have to admit that his girl Zanya was almost as badly off. She sat huddled in Spike’s old wheelchair, staring vacantly into space with her one remaining eye, muttering to herself in what he could only assume was the language of her long forgotten African childhood. She was so badly burned that he could not even tell her demon face from her human form without looking at her teeth.

The troop was rounded out by a pair of Angel’s recent spawn, two scrawny, wet-behind-the-ears females called Kim and Keri, who hadn’t been considered skilled enough to join the raiding party at the cemetery. Shivering in their short shorts and tank tops, fangs bared defensively, they looked like refugees from the Cheer Camp of the Damned. They could have been body doubles for the Slayer.

Not for the first time, it occurred to Edwards that his goal of self-preservation might be better served by abandoning his companions. After all, _he_ wasn’t the one who’d gone to such great lengths to make a personal enemy of the Slayer. But that would mean leaving Zanya, and he wasn’t ready to do that yet. She had been with him three hundred years one way and another. She was the last thing on this Earth that he felt was truly his, the last connection between the vampire that he was and the man he had once been. So, here he would stay, cowering in this God infested place, serving the whims of a raving lunatic, praying to he-knew-not-what to let him just exist another day.

****

As soon as they dropped Buffy off, Willard meant to drive Amy home, but Amy had a better idea. “We can’t go home now,” she pointed out. “I mean, we went to a lot of trouble to set up this spell. If we don’t even stay out after six o’clock, what’s the point?”

“Well,” said Willard, “we could go to the Bronze, but... I’m not really dressed for it.”

“No problem,” Amy declared, pulling a black leather handbag from under the passenger seat, “Look what I found!” Sheila’s purse, Willard realized. Amy rifled through it and quickly came up with a couple of credit cards. “I think,” she said enticingly, “that a whole new man deserves a whole new wardrobe.”

“Oh, I don’t know Amy...” Willard started to say, and then laughed out loud and grinned from ear to ear. “We might get in trouble!”

“Now that’s the spirit!” Amy grinned back.

“Say!” said Willard, “I think I’m a juvenile delinquent!”

“Yeah, ya are!” said Amy encouragingly, shoving the credit cards into his pockets.

Willard’s grin got wider and goofier. “So far,” he said, “I think I like it. It’s like... we can do whatever we want! We’re... above the law!”

Amy grinned wickedly patting her book bag on the seat beside her, “With these,”she said triumphantly, “we _are_ the law.”

****

The Summers family ate in their usual awkward silence punctuated by even more awkward attempts by Joyce to start a conversation. The thing was, Buffy wanted to talk to her mother, but there was nothing in her life, nothing that mattered, that she could talk to her about. It seemed farcical to discuss her homework or adding extracurricular activities or any of the other banal things her mother tried to bring up, when she might just as easily be dead tomorrow, when she might be pregnant right now. If she said a single word about vampires, she would get that look. The I-wonder-if-they-have-a-bed-available-at-the-Carsters-Clinic-if-I-call-right-now-and-God-I-hope-this-will-just-go-away-before-I-have-to-do-that look. If she said a word about her murdering fugitive ex-boyfriend without mentioning vampires, the conversation would have to be fictionalized to the point of meaninglessness. She sure as hell couldn’t mention her current romantic dilemma, and she was not about to ask her mom’s advice on how long to wait before taking a home pregnancy test.

“May I be excused,” she mumbled when she’d finally forced down half a serving of pot-roast. Joyce nodded, her eyes welling up with tears. Buffy stood and quickly turned and walked away, heading up to her room for a nap.

Despite the quip she’d made to her friends about being so well rested, she felt drained, exhausted. For the first time in recent memory, she also felt nauseous, not I’m-having-an-emotion-that-I-can-feel-physically-in-my-guts nauseous but why-did-God-allow-both-nochos-and-cotton-candy-to-be-sold-at-places-that-also-have-til-a-whirls nauseous, which was not a normal reaction to a few bites of perfectly respectable crock-pot pork roast. What she didn’t feel was cramps, or twinges, or a strong desire to eat something involving chocolate and/or salt.

Buffy opened the trunk at the foot of her bed and lifted out the false bottom. There among the stakes and charms and little vials of holy water lay the white paper sack from the pharmacy, the outline of the box clearly visible inside. She’d always heard you had to take a pregnancy test first thing in the morning, but then again, it couldn’t hurt to read the instructions ahead of time. Despite her earlier thoughts along the lines of just-wait-and-see, she suddenly felt the need to be _doing_ something about this very real threat to life as she knew it.

According to the card inside the box, there was actually no need to wait until morning. She could know the truth, within reason, five minutes from now. Two blue lines would mean 9999 out of a ten thousand that she was pregnant; only one, almost 9 out of 10 she was not. No lines at all would mean the test was a dud. The realization that, after ten days of constant anxiety, the power of knowledge was in her hands, made Buffy feel the opposite of relieved. Wanting to be in the process of doing something about finding out was entirely different from wanting to instantly convert her worst fear into an absolute certainty, especially without the hope of a corresponding certainty on the other side of the equation.

Her first instinct was to call Willow. There were at least three good reasons why that couldn’t happen right now. Her next impulse was to call Xander, but there was no good there. She couldn’t have called Cordelia if she had wanted to, because she was out on a date with Xander. For a split second, she tried to imagine having a conversation with Kendra about this. She didn’t see that going very well, not that it mattered since she didn’t know how to get a hold of Kendra without going through the Council. There was something about Amy that inspired Buffy not to trust her even a little bit, which pretty much exhausted the list of girls Buffy knew who might actually be willing to talk to her ever, about anything. She was pretty much down to calling either Oz or Aunt Arlene, neither of which struck her as a great idea.

She decided to quit being a baby and just take the damned test already. The instructions said to lay the thing on the counter when you were done and come back to look at it in five minutes, but that seemed like an accident waiting to happen. Instead, she sat and held it, watching the lines develop like an abstract version of a Polaroid. She had to consciously resist the temptation to shake it to make it go faster.

When the first line was fully formed and the first ambiguous hint of a second began to appear, Buffy felt something she didn’t expect to feel. She was so shocked she almost dropped the test stick on the floor. Her dominant emotion at the instant that her fate was on the verge of becoming clear to her had been not fear, but hope!Buffy suddenly realized that she _wanted_ to be pregnant... at least, for the ten seconds it took her to realize that she actually _was_ pregnant, which was something else again.

She felt neither joy nor sorrow. There was definitely a healthy dose of fear now, but the main thing she felt was relief. First of all, the ‘worst’ had happened and the world showed no sign of coming to an end because of it. Turning upside down maybe, but not coming to an end. On top of that, Buffy had an odd realization. If she had a child, at last there would be something _real_ , something that _mattered_ in her life besides what she had been chosen to do, something she had chosen. For the first time in a long time, her future, or at least the most important part of it, was entirely in her hands.

‘No fate but what we make,’ she thought, amused at herself. Melodramatic much? But the truth was, there wasn’t much over stating the importance of the choice that fate had dropped in her lap. She could, if she wanted to, bring to life an entirely new individual human person. In a way, she’d be choosing the past, as well as the future. The difference between making love and making a mistake was hers to determine. Her child, Giles’ child, would be the product of their love, the proof, the validation of it. And it would be true, forever.

“Life is short.” She said out loud, though she had not been conscious of thinking anything along those lines. It made so much sense that she repeated it. “Life is short.”Suddenly, Buffy was overwhelmed with joy and sorrow and love and regret and hope and dread and a million other things she couldn’t put a name to. The truth was beautiful and terrible and undeniable. Life _was_ short. And Buffy was young and in love, and old and alone, and pregnant.

****

It was dark in Quentin Travers’ study where ancient velvet drapes closed out the always illuminated London sky. The light of the single, green-shaded desk lamp fell across a small sheaf of papers. Rupert Giles’ Official Reports from the Hellmouth.

There was nothing in them that was inconsistent with what his own sources were telling him. But even by the standards of the Watchers’ Council they were circumspect, withholding detail and arguably understating the Slayer’s personal misconduct and the legal consequences thereof.

Reading between the lines, knowing the man in question, the terse accounts spoke volumes. Rupert Giles was no Watcher. The Council should have accepted his resignation when he’d offer it nearly six years ago. They should have left him to die in the gutter in London twenty years before that.

But he was Andrew Giles’ son.

Technically, the elder Mr. Giles was no more than an ordinary Council Member, no longer one of the Seven Equals who made up the Inner Council. But Andrew Giles would always be First Among Equals, and Quentin Travers could never be quite as equal as he. To make a move against the younger Mr. Giles, he would need more than unpleasant circumstances and uncharitable insinuations. He would need positive proof of misconduct. Perversely, he wished the worst would finally happen, he truly did. Then the both of these embarrassments to the Council could be dealt with.

While Buffy was by all accounts a talented Slayer, she was beyond undisciplined. She was a law unto herself. Unfathomably, it was this very quality that had convinced some in the Council that Rupert Giles would be her perfect guide and teacher. If you want to keep a wild child on the straight and narrow, so the logic seemed to run, send someone who has looked over the edge into the abyss of chaos and come back a sadder and a wiser man.

It was rubbish of course. Quentin had said so at the time. Rupert Giles was the same as he had ever been, man and boy. It was the Council who would be sadder, if no wiser, for having trusted him again.

****

“You mean like a guy guy?” Cordelia asked incredulously, leaning across the tiny round table to be closer to the source of this incredible news, “like with a full set of equipment and everything?”

“You know,” said Xander, beginning to be sorry he’d ever brought up the subject of Willow’s transformation, “it didn’t really occur to me to ask.”

“Well, what did it seem like?” Cordelia persisted.

Xander helplessly relived the moment, hours earlier, when ‘Willard’ had shaken his hand. It had _seemed_ like he had a full set of equipment and a comprehensive plan of what to do with it. “How would I know?” he said, testily. “The whole thing just kind of creeped me out. Anyway, the point is, it’s not natural. Somebody has to tell Amy to cool it with this magic stuff before people start to get hurt.”

“Says the voice of recent experience,” Cordelia pointed out.

“Yeah, well, I’ve learned my lesson, and she should too,” said Xander, still agitated.

“Well,” said Cordelia, more amused than ever, “now’s your chance to tell her.”With a sinking heart and a rising stomach. He followed her gaze to the front door. Walking into the Bronze, arm-in-arm, looking like they’d just stepped out of the pages of Redbook and GQ respectively, were Amy and Willard.“Where do you think they got those clothes?” Cordelia wondered aloud.

“Of course, _that’s_ the burning issue of the evening,” said Xander sarcastically. He was on the verge of suggesting a hasty retreat, when Willard beat him to the punch. The minute his eyes fell on their table, he took a step backwards, dragging Amy with him. Shaking his head and whispering frantically, he pulled her into the alcove by the bathrooms, out of sight.

“Oh My God,” said Cordelia, “I guess that answers that question.”

“What?” said Xander.

“Oh Please,” said Cordelia, “he didn’t drag her in there to swap magic potion recipes.”

“No, that’s not it,” Xander argued, “they’re avoiding us.”

“Why would they do that?” Cordelia asked with palpable skepticism.

“Because...” Xander tried to explain, sensing that he was on dangerous ground, “Willard’s a guy... and I’m a guy... and we’re both two guys... but he’s still Willow and I’m still me and ... I don’t know what that adds up to for her... or him... but to me it adds up to let’s get the hell out of here and go hit Ben and Jerry’s. Come on, you and me, right now, my treat.”

“Oh my God,” said Cordelia, simultaneously amused and offended as only she could be. “You actually think Willow is still secretly pining over you, don’t you?”

“Well... yeah?” Xander admitted sure he had just sprung some kind of a trap.

“And she’s what... toying with Oz just to make you jealous?”

“No... I don’t think that... it’s just... I’m not available... so she’s just... you know...”

“Settling(!)” Cordelia concluded incredulously, “for a cool, laconic musician who’s read almost as much she has, totally gets everything she says and thinks she makes the world spin on its axis?”

“Yeah?”

“Open your eyes, Xander. Willow is in love with Oz. She’s totally over you. And she’s probably in the bathroom right now banging Amy Madison. You’ve got even less of a shot with her than you have with Buffy. The only girl pining for your undivided attention is me! I’m the one who loves you, Xander, and right now I have no idea why!”

 ****

After dinner with Buffy, Joyce had been so exhausted, so frustrated, so worn down by life that she’d wanted go straight to bed. But she couldn’t. She had to put away the plentiful leftovers, load the dishwasher, start the laundry going, and make out her bills to mail tomorrow. And it was trash day. By the time she’d waded through everything else and got down to the trash, it was nearly nine o’clock. For the eighth night in a row, Buffy’s light was out before her mother’s. Joyce supposed she was feeling run down by life as well.

Taking her giant Hefty Bag, Joyce started at the top of the house, emptying the wastebaskets in her home office, then her bathroom, then Buffy’s. Buffy’s trash can seemed oddly full. Inwardly scolding herself for being paranoid, Joyce pulled the transparent liner out and examined its contents. Stuffed in the bottom was a white paper sack that to Joyce said ‘pharmacy.’ Buffy didn’t have any legitimate prescriptions. Of course, there were other things you could get from a pharmacy, but under the circumstances, she felt she had to look in that bag. Inside it, she found one of the other things you could get at a pharmacy.

Two blue lines were clearly visible on the test strip. The included instructions confirmed that this was a positive result. Things started to fall into place in Joyce’s mind. She wished they would stop. No wonder Buffy had gone to bed exhausted right after dinner again. No wonder she had been trying to forge a secret prescription on a Saturday night instead of just talking to her mother about getting on the Pill. The way Buffy had said she’d been dating Angel ‘a while back,’ and the way Angel had said he hadn’t been able to sleep ‘since the night’ they’d ‘made love’, Joyce had thought they were talking about something that had happened weeks earlier. She guessed days could seem like weeks to people as young as Buffy or as crazy as Angel.

Joyce reached a horrifying realization. Angel had killed one of Buffy’s teacher’s, the girlfriend of her unofficial mentor, just days after she had first tried to leave him and hours after she had told him in two languages and in no uncertain terms that he was unwelcome in her house. Less than 24 hours later, he had killed her best friend’s father and kidnapped her, or at any rate, taken off with her under whatever degree of duress. The entire point of this murderous crime spree had been to terrorize her daughter into going back to him. If Angel learned that Buffy was pregnant, there was no telling what he might do.

 ****

“Will you relax,” Amy chided, trying to drag Willard out of the alcove.

“I can’t,” Willard hissed, “I mean the hospital was one thing ‘cause Buffy and Giles were there, and there was tons of stuff to catch up on, but now it’s just you and me and him and Cordelia and ... and this _thing_ that has a mind of its own and... and...they’re gonna _know_!”

“They’re _not_ gonna know,” Amy assured him, straightening his collar and brushing lent off the front of his shirt. Suddenly, his heart was pounding for an altogether different reason. He was all but sure she knew what she was doing, when she leaned into him, with both hands on his chest and whispered directly into his ear, “just one dance, then if you still want to... we can go.”

They stayed for more than one dance. They closed down the club, long after Xander and Cordelia were gone. Somehow, when Amy passed someone an ID, it magically passed inspection, and having a credible credit card was like a kind of magic all its own. But the best part was the way Amy held him when they danced together, the way she kissed him, the way she looked into his eyes. By the time Willard floated into the parking lot at two am, his beautiful girl on his arm, he felt ten feet tall.

But, then, suddenly, there it was, slamming him rudely back to Earth. Sheila Rosenberg’s car waited like a pumpkin coach to take him home to Willow’s thoroughly messed up life and everything that went with it. Not yet realizing the shift that had occurred, still high on the feeling that had been growing between them all night, drunk with passion in fact, Amy threw her arms around Willard and kissed him hard on the lips. The two of them stumbled against the Lexis. Despite a wave of inner turmoil, he kissed her back. The kiss deepened. Amy put her hands on Willard’s ass. The thing with a mind of its own approved. He wanted her, he really did. But it was no good.

“Amy,” he said apologetically, setting her back on her feet, “we can’t.”

“Sure we can,” she cajoled, “we can do whatever we want.”

“But...Oz...”

“...will never know.”

“But I’ll know,” Willard pointed out.

Amy sighed, folded her arms and walked around to the passenger side to get in. “So much for being above the law,” she muttered. Willard sighed too in his horse snorting way. He might not be entirely sure who he was or who he wanted to be with, but he knew who mattered most to him, and it wasn’t Xander or Amy or Buffy and it damn sure wasn’t Sheila Rosenberg. He couldn’t wait to get home, break Amy’s spell and be a girl again. The girl Oz loved.

 

 

 


	8. The L Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lovesick Poltergeist terrorizing Sunnydale High isn't the only one who's out of control as Willow's experimentations with Amy start to have consequences for everyone, including Buffy and Giles who find themselves deep in... something. Oh, and the Sadie Hawkins Dance is coming up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II: What We Make

_The church was above ground, brightly lit, clean and in good repair. Buffy recognized it anyway. Once again she was dressed in white. Everyone loved her dress._

_Her father, Hank Summers, was at her side, smiling and laughing, talking on his cell phone. Giles stood at the front of the church, next to the altar, beaming back down the aisle at her. The music started and at last she began walking towards her destiny._

_But then the bundle of flowers in her arms began to cry. Though she did everything she could to sooth the infant, it kept right on wailing loudly, all the way up the aisle. There was a murmur of disapproval from absolutely everyone. Even Spike and Drusilla were shaking their heads. Jenny Calendar looked absolutely pissed in that hard, quiet Gypsy-eyes-boring-into-your-head sort of way. Giles put his finger to his lips, looking particularly disappointed in her. Hank apologized to everyone on his conference call for his daughter’s rudeness._

“ _Honestly,” Buffy heard Mrs. Harris saying to her son in a loud stage whisper, “I don’t know what you ever saw in that slut.”_

“ _Well that’s no secret!” Her husband shouted back drunkenly, making the universal hand gesture for ‘huge tits.’_

“ _That Bunny Summers will be the death of me!” Sheila interjected._

“ _Well, this is what happens, when you let the children tell the parents what to do,” Ted was saying to Joyce as they passed the front row._

“ _I’m sure that’s right, honey.” Joyce agreed happily._

_At last, they reached the front of the church._

_The flowers stopped crying when she handed them to Cordelia. “Oh please!” the queen bitch said disdainfully, turning her back to the sanctuary and tossing the bouquet over her shoulder._

_Willow blushed and beamed as it landed in her arms. “I don’t know,” said Oz skeptically, “I’ve never really seen rats that color before.” But Amy assured her that they were beautiful._

_Meanwhile, Giles took Buffy’s right hand in both of his. He lifted it to his lips and gave it a gentle kiss that sent shivers through every nerve in her body. Buffy gasped, her knees giving way. Giles and Hank nodded the terms of some unspoken agreement. Each keeping a firm grip on one hand and arm, they supported her upright to the altar and gently laid her down on it._

_Hank handed Giles a Gothic looking sword, the kind where the hilt makes a giant cross, and stepped to one side to continue his phone conversation. Giles held the sword aloft, poised above Buffy’s breast. “It’s been done this way for a dozen centuries,” he explained. His tone was only mildly apologetic._

“ _Have you the ring?”the Mayor asked from the pulpit. Buffy held up her fist to show him that she was already wearing it, with the heart pointed towards her, her ring finger turning from purple to black as it grew ever tighter, biting into her flesh._

“ _Then if none here knows of any just cause—” the Mayor continued._

“ _Stop!”Angel demanded, standing and advancing down the aisle. “A person just doesn’t wake up one day and stop loving somebody!” He cocked his gun and trained it on Buffy’s heart. “Love is forever!”_

Buffy didn’t know if her alarm clock actually woke her or just happened to go off at the exact moment that her nightmares startled her from sleep. How could it be 7:00? That would mean she had slept for nearly twelve hours. Was that normal? If so, no wonder the Council didn’t want Slayers getting pregnant. She’d have to start setting an alarm for her patrols she guessed.

The dream itself spooked her a little, but there was nothing in it that seemed... realistic enough to be prophetic. She guessed it was just a bundle of guilt and anxiety rolling around in her brain, fretting over the tangled mess that was her life.

Buffy reached into the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out Angel’s ring, still hanging on the chain by which she’d worn it in the days following his transformation. She curled her hand into a fist around the ring and let the chain dangle under her gaze. The truth was, she hadn’t stopped loving him, but there was no place for that love in her life now. It was a broken piece of a different puzzle, shoved in where it didn’t fit.

Not that she was too sure the rest of the pieces fit together either, now that she thought about it. She loved a man who thought it was a crime to be with her, which, okay, technically it was. She had gotten herself and her best friend on the wrong side of another law to avoid an outcome that turned out to be exactly what she wanted. Now, she had a secret that desperately needed keeping, but couldn’t be kept, except by making a sacrifice that she wasn’t willing to make. She had demons to slay, equations to solve, and less than two hours to read enough of Romeo and Juliet to fake her way through an English quiz. She had court in a month, finals in nine weeks and a baby due in November.

God! Wasn’t that honestly complicated enough! Why did she have to go and dream about Angel? How do you love a monster, a cold, dead, empty thing that can’t feel love? And if love makes someone a monster, if it hollows him out inside, then how can it still be called love?

“Alright, smart guy,” she said to the familiar, puffy-shirted gentleman on the front of her English Lit book, “why don’t you tell me something about love.” But all she found was ‘two hours traffic' of people running around sticking swords in each other and sneaking in and out of windows, which was pretty much what Buffy called a Tuesday night. The one point on which ‘the Bard’ was most definite was also one on which he was wrong. One love didn’t burn another out of Buffy’s heart. One piled up on top of the other, crushing her, crippling her, as both of them endlessly burned.

 ****

Per hospital policy, Giles was transported to his taxi via wheelchair, though he had been up on his feet pretty regularly for a couple of days. He’d have to do something about a car pretty soon he realized. It’d be hell trying to live in southern California without one. He needed to do something about a lot of things, actually, not the least of which was to buy a new mattress. But there was something more important that he had to do first.

“And where are we going to on this fine day that the Lord hath made?” the driver asked cheerfully.

“Pleasant Hill Cemetery,” he said levelly.

“No flowers?” the driver chided gently.

“No,” said Giles coldly, sharply. He vainly closed his eyes against the remembered sent of rich red roses laced with the anticipation of unacted passion. The joy he had felt at that moment, the sense of resolution, of recovery of love once lost.... The horror of it all was too much. Reaching behind his glasses, he squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing back his tears.

“Hey man...” the driver yammered amiably, “I didn’t mean to upset you or anything... You know... what you need to do is just lift it up to the Lord, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“For God’s sake man!” Giles lashed out, losing his temper, “Do I look like I’m eager to have a friendly chat?! Why can’t anyone in this accursed country learn to mind his own damned business?!”

“Hey, man,” said the driver, backing off in a tone that suggested his passenger was the one being irrational, “it’s all good, you know what I’m sayin’”

Giles sniffed indigently, “No sir, I do not, nor do I wish to.”

“Well all right then!” said the driver. They made the rest of the journey in silence, which suited Giles perfectly. It was a bit awkward, however, when he realized he’d have to ask the man to wait. There was nothing out this way,no telephone to call another cab.

The minute he saw Jenny’s grave, he regretted his decision to come. He had wanted to come here to feel her presence, he supposed. Instead he felt her absence more keenly than ever. He felt foolish standing there in silence, holding in his angry sadness, doing nothing whatsoever. He would have felt even more foolish raving aloud, pouring out his heart to a headstone under the watchful gaze of his unwanted companion. He wished he _had_ brought flowers. At least laying them on her grave would have given him something to do, a reason to reach down and touch the Earth that embraced Jenny as he never had and never would.

He wished he had someone to explain all of this to, someone who would understand his pain and could comfort him. If only Buffy were here with him! The thought was strong, sincere and spontaneous. He laughed out loud at its absurdity. He wondered, but didn’t care what the driver would make of that.

“You know,” he declared to the bright, cold March sky, “I think Angel _must_ be one of yours! You have the same damned sense of humor!”

Shaking his head, he turned and walked back to the car. Sure enough he was being watched with a sort of self satisfied pity. He glared back defiantly. “The Lord says piss off,” he sneered.

“Come on now man,” the cabby admonished as he pulled back out onto the street, “there’s no need to use that kind of language. That’s my personal Savior you’re talking about.”

“God-bless-William-Bloody-Bradford,” Giles murmured under his breath, “sometimes I hate this Country!” He knew what he was about to do was pointless, counterproductive even, but he couldn’t help himself. “You can’t have a personal relationship with an infinite unfathomable entity,” he pointed out, “anymore that you can with someone who’s been dead or transcendent or what have you for two-thousand years.”

The driver was beyond incredulous. “You seriously telling me you don’t believe in a higher power working though us, working in our lives?”

“On the contrary,” Giles assured him with bitter amusement, “I know for a fact that there is. I’m just not fool enough to think I sit it down for nice chat whenever I like. It is what it is and it does what it does, weaving its perfect, terrible, incomprehensible will while we poor mortals live and die as best we can. Tell your troubles to the sun or the wind if you want. Trust me, they’re not listening.”

The driver just shook his head and grinned, “Man, where are we goin’?”

Giles sighed. “To the nearest car dealer.”

“You got it!” the driver said.

****

“Hey, Buff!” Xander called a little too enthusiastically as she walked into Ms. Frank’s second period English class, “Come, Buffy, who is my very dear friend, sit next to me.”She did, smiling wryly to herself, knowing exactly what he wanted.“You did the reading, right? Tell me you did the reading,” he demanded.

“More or less,” Buffy confirmed.

“More more or more less?” Xander asked nervously.

“I got through most of it,”Buffy said, “I skipped the parts that were supposed to be funny.”

“Alright, so tell me everything you can about it in...” He looked at his watch, “ninety second.”

“It’s Romeo and Juliet,” Buffy pointed out dryly. "You should already know everything I can tell you about it in ninety seconds.”

“So tell me everything I don’t know in ninety second,” he insisted.

Buffy sighed, “It’s more of a body count piece than you might think. Romeo’s majorly immature and also kind of an asshole. He kills Juliet’s cousin, who’s an even bigger asshole, but she still sleeps with him anyway, which is gross ‘cause she’s like thirteen. Then finally, after half the kids in town are dead, the grownups admit that it was all their fault in the first place.”

“Wow,” said Xander monotonally, “how romantic.”

Buffy shrugged, “That’s kinda what I thought.”

“God, I miss Willow!” Xander declared.

“Well, you could try doing your own homework,” Buffy pointed out.

“It’s not that,” said Xander. “It’s just...all this educational stuff seemed a little less pointless when she was around.”

“Well, at least _you_ can still see her at night if you want,” Buffy pointed out.

Xander made a noise between a snort and a laugh, “You mean I can still see _him_ at night, or more accurately them, and no thanks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Buffy asked startled by the bitterness in his voice.

“Haven’t you heard?” Xander explained, “Amy and Willard are uh... quite the hot new couple around town... dancing the night away, buying everybody drinks, driving Dr. Rosenberg’s car, sporting all the latest fashions.”

“Seriously?” said Buffy, but then she thought about how Willard had looked at her the day before, and at Amy. Then, another thought bugged her.“Wait a minute, how can they afford all that?”

“I’ve been asking myself that very question,”said Xander meaningfully.

“Oh come on, Xander,” Buffy tried to be a voice of reason, “this is Willow we’re talking about. She of the level head. I mean, there’s no way she would steal from her own—” Xander was giving Buffy the look she so richly deserved.“God! This is all my fault!” Buffy concluded. “I’m like this evil thing that turns people evil!”

“No you’re not,” said Xander softening the look. “I don’t know what you and Willow were thinking that night... and I don’t think I want to know, but this is hell and gone from that. For this, I blame Amy.”Buffy was not entirely sure she deserved such a lenient assessment, but the way things had been going lately, she would take what she could get. She was more worried about Willow than ever though. She would have liked to have discussed it more, but Ms. Frank had come in and was starting the quiz. One thing was for sure. She needed to have that talk with Amy after all, and as soon as possible.

 ****

“Let me get this strait,” Spike said to Edwards as the two of them emptied the baptismal pool one rusty bucket at a time, pouring the slimy, stagnant water into a nearby crack in the floor, “You’re telling me this place is directly underneath Sunnydale High School?”

“Yes,” said Edwards apprehensively. In his recent experience, it was seldom a good thing to see Spike so pleased and excited.

“That very same Sunnydale High School which is not only the reservoir of all the young blood in this cursed town but also the command center of our very own Slayer and her gang of spirited wannabes?”

“I don’t think there’s more than one,” Edwards said, trying to smile.

“And yet,” Spike orated, rising to the crux of his incitement, “you and yours spent sixty years coming and going by ten miles of tunnels through that mausoleum we came in at, clear on the other end of town?”

“There’s no access to these tunnels from the drains under the school,” Edwards argued defensively.

“Bollix!” Spike declared. “All we need is a pick and a shovel. Then we can stroll right in. I’d bet my balls those kids sneak down to the basement to get up to their little innocent shenanigans. We can hunt in broad daylight if we want.”

“And then the Slayer can ‘stroll’ down here and dispatch us at her leisure,” Edwards pointed out, getting nearer the truth of the matter.

“Where as currently she has to take a leisurely half hour jaunt first,” Spike sneered. “Look, Mate, we both know the only thing keeping the Slayer from killing us all right now is that she doesn’t know we’re here.”

“She will if we start dragging screaming school girls down through the sewers to our lair below,” said Edwards sourly.

Spike grinned, “We just have to use a little strategy is all.” With a nod towards the pool, he added, “how else do you think we are going to get this thing filled up before the new moon?”

“What about elementary schools?” Edwards asked hopefully.

Spike shook his head, “That’s a straight ticket to a mob scene, Mate. Even in a nasty place like Sunnydale, nobody’d stand for that. Besides, I don’t think they really count as virgins until they’re old enough not to be.”

Creases deepened in Edwards’ already demonically furrowed brow. “Then how, will we know what we’re getting?” he asked.

Spike grinned, slapping him on the back. “Well, obviously, we’ll have to check their credentials.”

“You don’t honestly believe you can tell just by looking?” Edwards asked.

Spike shrugged. “We’ll have to err on the side of caution,” he admitted. “You can tell a lot from how they react, as far as that goes.”

“It’s a pity the Slayer isn’t a virgin,” Edwards mused, thinking of the quality of blood they could have gotten for the ritual.

Spike’s grin broadened, “You’re not seeing the body as half full, Mate. If the dishes are already broken, we don’t have to handle with care.”

Edwards stared at his companion in disgust. How had he fallen in with not one but two vampires with a Slayer fetish? No good could come of that kind of thinking.

“What?” said Spike defensively, “Turn about’s fair play.”

Edwards simply shook his head in disbelief.

“Two can play his game,” Spike went on, “That’s all I’m saying.”

****

Amy pouted into the bathroom mirror as she reapplied her lipstick. Her small frown gave her usually pleasant face a strangely cruel look. The dark circles under her eyes didn’t help any. “Refresh,” she murmured. Her image in the mirror became bright eyed and well rested, though Amy still felt completely slagged.

Suddenly, she felt a firm, urgent hand grip her shoulder, tugging her towards a nearby stall. Gasping, she spun towards her assailant, prepared to defend herself by the power of the dark arts if necessary.“Shush!” Willow hissed, beckoning her into the stall and closing the door.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she whispered, her mind reeling at the varied possibilities of Willow’s intentions.

“I called you like ten times!” Willow rasped. Her tone had the emotional effect of shouting though her voice was all but silent.

“I didn’t want to talk to you,” Amy admitted in a low tone that was at once sullen and apologetic. “I made a fool of myself.”

“Look, Amy,” Willow whispered urgently, “this isn’t about... all of that. I’ve got a big, big problem. Please, you have to help me!”

“Okay, okay” Amy agreed, sounding more ruffled than ever, “what’s the problem.”

“It’s my mom,” Willow whined miserably, “I can’t get her to wake up.”

Amy’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “I mean, you’ve learned more magic in the last two weeks that I did my first six months. You’re good at this. Breaking your own spell should be like nothing.”

“Well, it’s not,” said Willow near tears now, “I kissed her. I said the words. I tried a dozen times. I hugged her. I held her. I slapped her. I begged her to come back. But she just lays there, breathing in an out, and what if she never wakes up?! What if she starves to death?! Or dies of thirst?! You can die of thirst in just two days you know! And she’s my mom... and...and...my dad’s _gone_... and I’m all by myself...and, I don’t think I like being bad anymore!”

“Willow!” said Amy firmly, gripping her by both shoulders, “breathe! Get a hold of yourself. Nobody’s gonna die. In the first place, the spell doesn’t work like that. You could leave her like that for years if you wanted. It’s like sleeping beauty, perfect preservation.”

“You’re sure about that?” Willow asked, already visibly calmer.

“Completely,” Amy assured her. She chewed her hair for a minute, thinking. “I mean... it’s possible to do a counter spell, but it’s really complicated, and ... things have to be lined up a certain way, you know astrologically. It really should be so much easier for you to break the spell yourself...”

“Well, it’s not,” said Willow glumly.

Amy though for minute, “Well... there’s one kind of general reversal spell that we could do if the dog star was...,” she sighed, “but that’ll take about two and a half years...”

“What about that spell Giles did on your mom?” Willow asked. “That reversed everything and it looked... okay not easy, but you know, easy enough.”

Amy shook her head. “Trust me,” she said, “you don’t want that. That spell can do serious psychic damage. I mean, not to my mom, ‘cause she’s to mean to die, but that spell could literally kill you.”

“Really?” said Willow skeptically. Even given his behavior in the last couple of weeks, it was still hard to imagine Giles undertaking anything that might result in the death of a student.

“Buffy was dying,” Amy pointed out, following her train of thought surprisingly well, “He couldn’t let that happen. He’s totally in love with her.”

Willow laughed nervously, “What?” she said, doing her best to fake total disbelief of what she was hearing, “that’s ridiculous.”

Amy laughed at Willow’s dismayed expression, “Well, I’m not saying he’d _do_ anything about it,” she clarified. “He’s too much of a goody-good guy for that. But it’s there; you can see it in his eyes.”

“Right,” said Willow, “you are so right about that. So anyway... a counter spell.”

Amy gave Willow a hard, evaluative kind of look, then shrugged indifferently. “We’re going to have to do some reading...” she murmured thoughtfully. “You know,” she sighed, “it’s too bad we can’t do a Krathon’s scales... it’s a kind of a diagnostic, thing. It could tell us what you’re doing wrong...”

“So why can’t we?” Willow asked.

“It has to be done at the aphelion of the Earth from the Sun,”she explained, and that’s not ‘til the fourth of July.”

“Well that’s a plan then,” Willow joked, “It might not be such a bad thing for Mom to take a rest for a while. Hey, maybe I could even transfer back to Sunnydale in the meantime. In fact,” she went on,“maybe we should wait and do that first spell you talked about. That way I could graduate and move out of the house first.”

Willow realized that Amy was staring at her again, even harder than before. In fact, her eyes were wide with horror. She was trembling.

“Oh, come on, Amy,” she assured her, “I’m kidding.”

Amy shook her head. “No,” she said, “you’re not. That’s the problem. Willow, to break the spell, you have to _want_ your mom to wake up—”

“I do!” Willow assured her, exasperated. “We’re supposed to see the lawyer tomorrow and they’re probably already missing her at work... and, even if I get through Court without anyone noticing, there’s the whole probation thing—”

“No,” Amy cut in, “Willow, you’re not getting it. You can’t just want her back because it’s convenient for you, or even because it’s the right thing to do. You have to want her back because you _want_ her back. Willow, to break this spell, you have to love her.”

****

“I don’t know if I want something with an automatic transmission.” Giles said skeptically. “Doesn’t do much for fuel economy.”

“Yeah,” said the salesman, “but can your wife drive a standard?”

“Oh, I’m not married,” Giles informed him distractedly, still looking at the little red coup that reminded him so much of the one he’d stolen a few days earlier. Except, this one was a convertible. “Probably never will be, I guess,” he added with a small stab of self pity.

“Well then you have to get an automatic,” the salesman argued doggedly. “I mean, women now days, especially young women, they don’t want to be told they can’t drive your car. You want to keep your options open on that front? Get a car anyone can drive.”

He thought of Buffy’s perennial frustration with her mother’s refusal to teach her to drive. He imagined her smiling behind the wheel with the top down, golden hair streaming. He imagined himself gently guiding her through the process of learning to control the powerful machine with skill and poise, watching her grow in confidence as she gained more independence and control over her life. She’d be so pleased, so grateful. She’d throw her arms around him and say—! Words comparing him in a favorable way to her parents.

Rupert sighed, exasperated with himself. She was seventeen. He was forty-seven. He was her Watcher. She _should_ think of him as an authority figure approximately on par with a parent. He should think of her... not as a child exactly, because you don’t send your child into mortal combat every night... but as a _charge_ , someone under his guidance if not, strictly speaking, his protection. The idea of becoming romantically involved with the Slayer was—! He scoffed silently at himself. –A reality. One he couldn’t reconcile with his sacred duty as a Watcher. One he couldn’t deny.

Still. The car was beautiful. It wasn’t as though he’d be buying it _just_ for Buffy. Anyway, there was nothing wrong with wanting to teach a young person to drive. After all, everyone needed to be able to _drive_ in this country, even Vampire Slayers. He’d be somewhat remiss in his duty, wouldn’t he, if he allowed his Slayer to remain deficient in such a basic life skill?

An image flashed through Rupert’s brain of Buffy: naked, perfect lounging in the back seat with her legs spread slightly apart giving him that look that made him want to fall into her deep green eyes and drown. He opened his mouth to say that he was looking for something a little more practical. Somehow it came out, “If you knock off 10% I can give you cash today.”

****

Buffy loitered near the big double doors at the back of the lunch room. She felt the exact polar opposite of ‘hungry’ and the stink of greasy, overcooked food was making her feel more so. Finally, Amy walked in. Her face glowed with radiant health, but she slouched and shuffled her feet like a tired, worried person.

“Hey Amy,” she said, trying to sound casual.

Amy’s brow furrowed. “What’s up?” she asked with obvious concern and maybe just a little defensiveness.

“Do you have a minute?” Buffy asked earnestly, not worrying about casual anymore.

“Sure, Buffy,” Amy said, looking more worried than ever, “just let me get my tray,” Then, contemplatively, “You should get something too, you don’t look so good.”

“Thanks,” said Buffy sarcastically, following her into the lunch line. Amy shrugged. After yesterday, Buffy was not about to tell Amy she felt sick to her stomach. It would have amounted to a much more significant announcement that Amy should _not_ be the first to know. Unfortunately, as she contemplated the choice between a thawed and heat lamped burger and a gloppy spoonful of some kind of massive meat pie, her stomach was threatening to make the announcement for her. She passed them both up for a dollop of green Jell-O and a carton of 1% milk. Was she supposed to be drinking whole milk? She hoped not. It tasted slimy. Anyway, that could have been an announcement too, to someone who was as forewarned as Amy was to expect one.

“Let’s sit outside,” Buffy suggested, hoping she didn’t look as green as she felt. Amy silently followed her to a wooden picnic table in the dappled shade of a large oak, covered with the young buds of the impending spring. Unless Buffy was imagining things, she looked a little bit amused for a second.“We need to talk about Willow,” Buffy said simply.

“What do you mean?” Amy demanded shortly, suddenly not amused now.

“Willow is really messed up right now,” Buffy said. “She hurting, vulnerable. She needs her friends to look out for her, not to take advantage of her and mess her up worse.”

“Humph,” Amy scoffed. “Are _you_ seriously going to lecture _me_ about... taking advantage of Willow?” Her voice dripped with scorn. “Leading her down a path of crime and immorality am I?”

“Look, Amy,” Buffy tried again, stuffing down her resentment, “let’s not make this about blame. Whatever has happened has happened, but this whole magical escape from reality trip is not good for Willow.”

“Willow’s a big girl,” Amy pointed out hotly. “She can make her own choices.”

“To be your magical sex toy and personal credit card?” Buffy challenged, losing her temper a little.

“Excuse me!” said Amy, her voice rising alarmingly in both pitch and volume, “but, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m Willow’s best friend now, not you, and that’s the way she wants it! Where have you been for the last two weeks, anyway? Off fluffing Mr. Giles ... pillows?”

Half a dozen heads turned in their direction. “Keep your voice down!” Buffy hissed through gritted teeth.

“Wow,” said Amy, her voice much quieter but no less contemptuous, “now there’s a heartfelt denial.”Buffy’s cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment. Amy could only have learned what she obviously knew from Willow.

Amy narrowed her eyes, smiling cruelly, “Alright,” she said, her volume creeping up again, “I’ve listen to what you have to say; now you listen to me. Willow and I will decide what’s good for us. We’ll do all the magic we want, spend all the money we want and _fuck_ , whoever we want, however we want, including each other, and if you go sticking your self-righteous nose into our business again, things are going to get very, very rough for you and your geriatric toy-boy.”

“You know,” said Buffy acidly “If it wasn’t for Giles, the best thing you could hope to be by now is dead. He gave you your life back after your own mother took it from you. Now you’re throwing it away again, becoming what she was and dragging Willow down that same path. Don’t you think for a minute that you’re in a position to judge him, or me.”

“I’m not judging,” said Amy coolly, “I’m warning you. Don’t cross me, Buffy.”

Buffy sat a moment seething, trying a get a handle on her emotions, wanting to put her fist through Amy’s face. “You know what, Amy,” she said at last, “You _may_ be a real witch, maybe even half as powerful as you think you are, or a tenth of what your mother was. But I am the Slayer. If you do anything to hurt Willow or Giles, you will have to answer to me.”

“Aw,” said Amy sarcastically, “isn’t that sweet. Mother bear defending her little cubs.” With a mean smile, she got up and walked back towards the cafeteria with her half eaten lunch.

Halfway across the lawn, still in the midst of the picnic tables, she turned and shouted, “Congratulations, Buffy, I hope it’s a boy! That way he can grow up to be a ‘pompous,’ ‘meddling’ ‘idiote’ like his ‘fahtha(r)’!” Her pronunciation of the four key words was not only clearly British, but spot on Giles.

Buffy stood up and looked at Amy with murder in her eyes. She counted in her head up to 97 in the time it took the young witch to reset her face from stark terror to haughty contempt, turn majestically and stride away at a surprisingly high rate of speed.

Buffy swept the crowded picnic area with her eyes. No one laughed or whispered under her killing gaze, but as she walked towards the building, deliberately not moving fast enough to catch up to Amy, she could hear a dull roar erupting behind her back.

“Oh Buffy!” Someone gasped in an atrocious, effeminate British accent, tittering all the while. “Let’s go the libe’ry.” The crowd exploded with laughter. Buffy stopped and almost turned around. The laughter quieted by about 85%. She kept going, not slowing her stride as the volume picked back up again.

****

“What’d I tell ya, Mate?” Spike said triumphantly, taking a flashlight from Edwards to shine on the newly expose concrete. They had only dug about five feet, starting from a tunnel not three yards outside the church. He tapped at the structure experimentally with the end of his shovel, putting his ear to it to listen. “Water,” he confirmed. "Lots of it. Storm drain maybe.”

He grabbed his pick and reared back, ready to strike. “Don’t!” Edwards warned. “There could be a grate! The sun—”

“Don’t be such a wimp,” Spike jeered. He struck the concrete one firm blow, making a hole about the size of a grapefruit, with cracks running from it three feet in two directions. Water gushed from the opening. The two vampires were drenched in seconds. The water began to run through the tunnel, downhill, away from the church. “Now,” said Spike, grinning, “we’ll just let that drain off a little and come finish up about sunset.”

****

“Pst!” Willow hissed at Oz as he passed through the back stairwell, on his way back from eating lunch off campus as usual. He smelled her before he saw her. She smelled... strange somehow.

“Hey,” he said tenderly, trying to chalk it up to whatever weird stuff she was going through with her mom and the loss of her father. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, Oz,” she cried, bursting into tears, collapsing into his arms, “I’m so glad to see you!” He held her close, his face against her hair. Besides the strange notes in Willow’s own scent, other scents clung to her. One was a girl, familiar... Amy, he realized. It was a relatively strong scent. They had shared a tight space recently. Even stronger was the scent of her mother on her clothes and hair. Oz felt a brief sense of relief, imaging the two of them, at last, holding one another, sharing their sorrow.

But, if that was the case, it didn’t seem to have helped much. Willow was more distraught than ever. “What’s the matter?” he asked, “why aren’t you at Kent?” Willow only sobbed harder. “Shushshshsh,” Oz said soothingly, “it’s all right. Whatever it is, it’s all right.”

“I love you,” Willow sobbed. “I love you so much, Oz. I want to be with you, just you, nobody else.”

Suddenly, Oz knew what had been bothering him about Willow since he first smelled her. She had tried to wash it off. She had done a pretty good job, but the vaguest trace of the scent still clung to her. It clung _directly_ to her, not just on her clothes or even on her skin or in her hair, but in the folds of her body, in the _roots_ of her hair. It was the scent of another man.

 ****

Buffy hunched down in her seat in the front row of her fifth period Trigonometry class, contemplating what level of evil doing was actually necessary to justify killing a witch. She found it easier to listen to people whispering behind her back than to see them whispering in front of her, but there was the risk of actually getting called on to worry about. She couldn’t ditch school or even cut class because it would be a violation of her pretrial release. So she stared blankly at the open math book in front of her, hoping to survive another 90 minutes and get the hell out of there.

“Oh my God, really?” she heard Harmony squeal with delight, in response to someone who was doing a somewhat better job of whispering. “He’s like fifty. That’s so gross. ... Oh you would not!... There’s no such thing as hot for _his_ age... You’re such a perv, Tiffany.”

“Miss Kendall,” said Mrs. Rae pointedly, “come up to the board and complete the proof for number 23.”

Harmony was horror struck. She tried to stammer an excuse, but Mrs. Rae was unmoved by compassion. Buffy smiled, down at her text book. Maybe there was a tiny bit of justice in the world after all.

When she saw what Harmony was writing, she stopped smiling:

**GIVEN: LOVE IS FOREVER.**

**SINCE: A PERSON DOESN’T JUST WAKE UP AND STOP LOVING SOMEBODY!**

**THEREFORE: DON’T WALK AWAY FROM ME, BITCH!!!!**

Harmony, Buffy and Mrs. Rae were the only ones in the room not laughing. Suddenly, Buffy felt extremely ill. “Please,” she said to Mrs. Rae, “please, I have to go... I don’t feel...” Mrs. Rae nodded her understanding, still dumb founded. Laughter followed Buffy as she bolted for the door.

Buffy ran for the girls’ bathroom. By the time she got there, the world was spinning. She felt too unsteady leaning over the toilet. She sat down on the floor with her back against the stall door....

_Grace knelt on the bathroom floor, retching, weeping. This couldn’t be happening. But it was. She cursed the day she’d ever come to Sunnydale. She cursed the day she’d ever fallen in love. Love(!) At seventeen that might have been an excuse, but she was thirty-two, and there was no excuse for it._

_She wished she had two one-way tickets to a country where poets were the acknowledged ‘legislators of mankind.’ She wish she had whatever quality it was that allowed a person to go down to Mexico and come back as cheerful and carefree as if she’d done nothing more than lay on the beach. She wished the Earth would open its jaws and swallow her whole._

****

“All right, children,” Mr. Beach simpered, “Who can tell me something about the mating habits of the Gray Tree Frog?”

“Buffy Summers!” suggested a voice from somewhere behind Xander. He whipped around, but didn’t see who it was. There was a broad scattering of muffled laughter. Where, exactly was the joke?

“Frogs are French, dumb ass,” Dodd McAlvey pointed out, good-naturedly enough.

“Mr. McAlvey—” Mr. Beach began, pleased at least to have an identifiable target.

“What are Brits, then?” asked an amused voice in the front of the room, now behind the teacher. Xander recognized it as coming from Kyle, the former principal-eating hyena.

“Rabbits!” roared his ex-hyena girlfriend, causing Mr. Beach to whip around again, hopelessly lost.

Xander stood and strode several paces forward, ignoring Mr. Beach, focusing on Kyle. “Okay, what gives?” he demanded. He’d gathered by now that they were calling Buffy a slut, but why or how was not exactly clear to him.

Kyle sank a little under Xander’s stare, looking uncomfortable. He might be repressing the main events of his sojourn on the wild side, but he remembered enough to be leery of an angry Xander Harris. “These dick-wads think—” Kyle began to explain.

“Alright, now—” Mr. Beach tried unsuccessfully to raise his voice.

“—that the gay librarian knock-up Buffy Summers.”

Xander laughed out loud, not knowing which half of the statement was stupider.

“Screw you, Kyle,” said Dodd McAlvey.

“That’s enough!” Mr. Beach squeaked, finally managing a slight rise in volume.

“You’re so far off base!” Xander said to Dodd. “Where’d you get a stupid idea like that?”

“Alright, all three of you—” Mr. Beach stammered.

“That crazy Lesbo, Amy Madison,” Kyle sneered.

“—to the principal’s office!”

“She was just pissed off because Buffy accused her of screwing Willow Rosenberg,” Kyle concluded coolly. This elicited more excited murmuring and muffled laughter.

“That’s enough!” said Xander forcefully. “This is all a bunch of crap,” he added to the class in general, “You all know that right?”

“I mean it!” Mr. Beach insisted, actually stamping his foot. “You!” He shouted to Gage Petronsi, obviously not realizing Gage and Dodd were best buds, “go get the principal!”

“Whatever,” said Gage defiantly.

“Hey!” said Xander, recognizing the voice at last, “He’s the one who started all this in the first place!”

“All four of you—” Beach tried again, near tears of frustration.

“Five,” said Dodd, jerking his head in the direction of Kyle’s girlfriend.

Beach let out a noise that, if it had been louder, would have been a scream. “You!” he said to a random girl on the front row, “go get the school security officer to escort these... hooligan’s to the principal’s office.”

“Alright, alright,” said Dodd, “we’re going.”

Xander shrugged, following the others out of the classroom. They scattered, figuring Beach wouldn’t have the follow through to actually check with Snyder and make sure they got detention. Xander headed for the computer lab to see if Oz would let him hang out until sixth period, or maybe right through it. He wondered what, if anything, he could do about the crazy Buffy/Giles rumor and the partly true one about Willow and Amy.

There was a hushed, electrified crowd in the upstairs hallway. It didn’t take long to see why. It took longer to believe what he was seeing. Oz was standing in the middle of the hallway with a gun in his hand, getting in touch with his inner werewolf, screaming like a maniac... at Willow. “A person doesn’t just wake up and stop loving somebody!” he howled. “Love is forever!”Willow was sobbing, begging him to calm down. It wasn’t working. She made a break for it, running towards the balcony. A poor escape route. Oz ran after her, still shouting, “Don’t walk away from me, bitch!”

By the time Xander was aware of being in motion he was on top of Oz, throwing him to the ground. He hit him more than once or twice, more than a few times. Willow was at his shoulder, tugging at him, begging him to stop. He felt himself hoisted up and backwards by four strong arms. Doug and Larry held on to him as Willow helped a battered, bleeding Oz get unsteadily to his feet. “Come on Xander,” Larry was saying, “that’s not the way, man.”

“Huh!” Xander scoffed straitening himself up and shrugging them off. This from a guy who’d still been stuffing people in lockers a couple of months ago!

“Where’s the gun?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Oz gasped, clutching his side, trying to catch his breath. “I don’t even know where I got it.” He was nearly doubled over in pain. His face was red and turning purple, starting to swell.

“It’s okay,” Willow crooned, holding him up on his feet, tears streaming down her face, “it’s gonna be okay.”

“Willow!” Xander all but scolded, “he just tried to kill you.”

“No,” said Willow urgently, “He didn’t. Xander it wasn’t real.” Even Oz registered shock and skepticism at that announcement. “It wasn’t... it was a Hell—hell of a thing,” Willow tried to explain. “I don’t know what possessed us to uh... rehearse that scene in here.”

Sirens wailed in the distance. “Get out of here!” Xander shouted to Willow, “the cops! Your bond...!”

“Stand not amazed!” said Larry urgently, taking Oz from her arms. He knew Willow well enough to suspect this would click the right gears in her brain. It did. Willow fled for the stairwell. He was glad he’d read the homework.

“Hence, be gone away!” shouted someone else in the crowd, more amused than concerned. Ms. Frank would be so pleased to know she was making an impact.

 _Oz_ was amazed, also in a lot of pain, but mostly amazed. Had he been possessed? He hadn’t felt possess, exactly, but as he replayed the fight he’d just had with Willow in his head, he had to admit that they’d both said thing that... didn’t quite fit the situation. What was the situation? He remembered the smell of a man and thinking that Willow was deceiving him, or maybe leaving him? It didn’t quite make sense. Had that been part of the possession? What about the gun? He remembered the feel of the metal in his hand, but not when or how it had gotten there.

The sea of staring, shouting students rippled and parted to admit a rush of police and paramedics. Principal Snyder followed in their wake, strutting like an angry bantam rooster and making a general noise of affronted authority. Oz found himself gently but firmly lifted off his feet and strapped to a gurney.

The cops had Xander up again a wall. Larry and Doug were trying to intercede for him. Everyone was talking at once. Oz wanted to say something on his behalf as well, but in this position, he couldn’t seem to draw breathe to talk. An oxygen mask was pushed down over his face. The hallway receded, as he was quickly rolled away.

****

Willow forced herself to go to her home instead of to the hospital. She would go later, in disguise, when she was sure the police had gone. She had practiced enough with Amy how to do a simple glamour. She was pretty sure she could do one by herself.

The door was unlocked. Willow was sure she had locked it. She stood in the foyer, listening. A voice, from the kitchen. Amy!She had the cadence of ordinary rather than magical speech, with long pauses at irregular intervals. On the phone, obviously, but to whom?Willow entered through the archway from the living room. “What are you doing here?” She asked.

“Saving your ass,” Amy hissed, putting a hand over the mouthpiece. Amy turned her attention back to whomever was on the phone. “Yes, well, that’s not surprising, I understand completely.” She listened for a moment. “I understand that, Tom,” she continued, “and it’s not that I don’t appreciate your efforts on my behalf... but you know I’ve always had a strong commitment to public education...

“I’m sure it is a good school, Tom, but you know I’ve always felt that class based parallel systems of education undermine the cohesion of a democratic civilization, to say nothing of the contribution social stratification makes to the support of patriarchy. I’m not calling you _anything_ Tom! It’s structural.... I know it was my idea.... Well, with everything that’s been happening I let myself fall into the trap of reactive discipline.”

Suddenly, Willow realized what was happening. But why would Tom Kaminski of all people be fooled by it? To be sure, Amy’s word choices, her arguments, her sentiments were in perfect imitation of Sheila Rosenberg, but the voice was unmistakable Amy Madison. Wasn’t it?

“Well, if you could just fax it directly to Sunnydale High, I’m sure they can take care of it.” Amy concluded. “Yes, of course, Tom. Thanks for everything. My love to Ruth and the kids.

“Alright,” she said to Willow, hanging up at last, “how did you know it was me?”

***

Buffy awoke slumped in a bathroom stall with her face pressed against the cool metal partition that separated it from the next stall. The whole front of her shirt was splattered with watery iridescent green vomit. She wiped it off as best she could, which wasn’t well, and zipped her sweater over it. Clearly she should have eaten something more substantial at lunch, or breakfast, or dinner... ad infinitum. In fact, she still felt shaky. And she was starving. And miserable. And humiliated. There was no way she could face going to sixth period and pretending to give a damn about French conjugations. There was no way she could face the consequences of simply not showing up. Seeing only one solution, she headed for the nurse’s office to hide until 2:30 when she would be able to go to the gym and take a shower.

Nurse Greenly was sympathetic, diagnosing her with ‘low blood sugar’ and offering her peanut butter crackers and 2% milk. She was so sympathetic in fact, that Buffy had an impulse to confide in her, but she kept it in check. Considering the rumors that were already flying all over school about both her pregnancy and her relationship with Giles, it was better than none of the school staff knew for sure that she really was pregnant for as long as possible.

Of course, some question remained as to what, exactly, her relationship to Giles was. She loved him. There was no question about that. But it seemed too much to hope that he could ever feel the same, especially given their last real conversation on the subject. Still, she knew firsthand how coming face to face with death could change a person’s perspective and priorities. And sometimes, when she looked in his eyes...

A horrible image flashed through Buffy’s mind in that instant: Blood. Death. A shattered face. A single, unseeing eye.

“Are you all right?” Nurse Greenly asked, putting a hand to her forehead. Buffy nodded, though she honestly wasn’t sure. “For a second,” the nurse said, “I thought you were going to pass out again.”

“I’m alright,” Buffy assured her, “really and truly.”Nurse Greenly gave her a gently skeptical look, but said nothing.

A moment later, Xander walked in, looking white as a ghost. The knuckles on both his hands were swollen and bleeding. Ignoring the nurse he said to Buffy, “Thank God you’re here! Something weird is going on! Something not good!”He recounted the whole occurrence while Nurse Greenly calmly daubed anti bacterial ointment on his hands and bandaged them. He substituted ‘a red haired girl’ for Willow, but spoke openly about students being possessed. If this fazed the nurse at all, she didn’t show it. Nurse Greenly was usually pretty good like that.

“My God,”said Buffy, when he was finished, “is Oz going to be alright?”

“Unknown,” Xander admitted heavily, “He uh... left in an ambulance a few minutes ago. We’ve got to figure out what’s doing this so you can sl—” Buffy shot him a look, then cut her eyes at Nurse Greenly. “Sleep better at night.” He finished. Then a new thought seemed to strike him. “What are you doing here anyway?” He asked. Buffy, looked down at the empty milk carton in her hands.

“I think I’ll go check on the supply cabinet,” said Nurse Greenly, ducking into another room. Apparently she didn’t need Buffy’s confidences to know what was going on. God, how was she supposed to tell Giles about this? This was not a good piece of news to give someone you were hoping to have a relationship with. ‘I love you honey, and to prove it I’m ruining your life.’

“Okay, what’s that about?” said Xander looking at the place where Nurse Greenly had disappeared.

Buffy made a little noise of misery. This wasn’t how she wanted to do this. Giles should have been the first to know, then probably her mother, then (in a perfect world) Willow. But here was Xander, sitting here asking her, and the truth was already out there, serving as prime entertainment for people like Harmony Kendall. “I passed out in the bathroom," she admitted, making a face of chagrin and disgust, “and I threw up all over my clothes... because I’m pregnant.”

“Oh” said Xander, laughing it off. “You hear that too? Isn’t it the stu—” Her eyes were not the eyes of an amused or sarcastic person. Something snapped into place with an almost audible click, something closely related to the not-so-very-funny story of Buffy’s bra. “Oh Jesus, Buffy,” he said, horrified, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Buffy struggled to suppress the offense she felt at that statement, knowing how it must look from his perspective. “I know it seems... weird... but...” she fumbled for the right words. She didn’t know what, if anything could help him understand and accept this news, but she knew the one thing that mattered most, so she said it. “I love him.” This met with the caliber of silence that one might imagine following in the wake of an atomic blast. “I mean,” Buffy struggled to explain, “I know, when you first think about it, it seems crazy...”

“Not seems, is,” said Xander firmly.“Buffy, this is not a good thing. You must know that.”

“I know the circumstances are a little... messed up...” she conceded, trying not to become defensive.

“A little? Jesus Christ, Buffy, he's like a teacher! More than! And he’s about a thousand! And he talks to you like he thinks you need to ride the short bus!”

“He does not,” Buffy insisted. Because he didn’t... exactly... lately.

“Yeah,” said Xander, “He does. He thinks he’s above you, as in the boss of you, which means that if he really cared about you, he wouldn’t be boning you.”

“It’s not like that,” said Buffy, angry, hurt, near tears.

“I can’t listen to this,” said Xander bitterly. “You just go ahead, sit here drink your milk and think about what you’re gonna tell your...uh ‘boyfriend’ about this Hellmouth dinner theater business. I’m gonna get to class.”

He hadn’t been gone two minutes, when the Snyde man himself stuck his head into the nurse’s office. “Summers!” he barked, “My office! Now!”When they got to Snyder’s office, he shut the door and glared at her. He was a strange combination of smug and seething. Smeething? “I suppose you know why you’re here?” he demanded. Buffy shrugged, she had an inkling, of course, but she was not about to tell him so.“Rumors,” he said quietly, intensely. “Scandalous, scurrilous lies are disturbing the peace and order of this campus, and, as always, your name seems to be at the center of everything.”

“So why don’t you talk to the liars,” she said defiantly, “instead of the people being lied about.” Her hatred of Snyder and the indignity she had been suffering all afternoon helped her to hang on to her anger even though she knew what she was saying was the opposite of the truth. “Don’t you tell me how to do my job, Missy!” Snyder snarled back. He paused to drink from a cup on his desk. “Lies,” he said meditatively. “They’re everywhere.”

“Look,” Buffy said, “if this is about what happened to Oz, I only heard about it second hand. If it’s about... that other thing... he never laid a hand on me, I swear.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot, Summers?” Snyder demanded. “I know who your... _breeding_ partner is, and it sure as hell isn’t Rupert Giles.”Buffy breathed a sigh of relief, for once glad that Snyder was the pig headed, irrational person that he was.

“Three people,” Snyder went on pedantically, accusingly, “all connected to you, all part of your little gang of misfits; Harris, Osborne and Rosenberg, decide to turn my school into the Okay Corral, and you have the nerve to sit there and tell me you don’t know anything about it?”

Before Buffy was able to formulate a response, the intercom buzzed. Snyder put it through. “Principal Snyder,” said Mrs. Haulk, the school secretary, “the Sheriff’s calling for you on line two.”

“I’ll take it in your office,” he said, punching the intercom off without waiting for a response.

“Well then, if you’re busy, I’ll just...” Buffy started to excuse herself.

“Sit,” said Snyder, pinning her to a chair with a look. “Stay. I’ll be back. You stink of lies.” He sniffed the air and wrinkled up his face, as much as to say that in this case lies seemed to smell of milky green vomit.

Buffy sighed. So much for getting out of here quickly. She stood up and leaned on Snyder’s desk, looking at the dull and impersonal personal items he had carefully arranged there. The only photographs were of the school itself and of the Mayor. Buffy heard a small thump behind her. A book had fallen from its shelf. She bent to pick it up. It was a yearbook, Sunnydale High School, 1955. As Buffy took hold of it, she found herself struck by a vision, a sort of waking dream....

_James had no trouble getting in through the loose window in the downstairs hallway. She had said not to come, that she wouldn’t be here... but he heard music coming from upstairs... Their song playing on the phonograph in the music room... “_ _♫_ _the moon may be high..._ _♪_ _” she was waiting._

_But she wasn’t waiting. She was startled to see him. She jerked her head up from the desk and slammed the drawer shut. Her face was streaked with tears._

“ _I brought you this,” he said, holding out the corsage, “I knew you’d be here.... I thought I’d bring to dance to you.”_

_Grace shook her head, smiling a sad smile. “It’s a Sadie Hawkins dance,” she reminded him. “I didn’t invite you.”_

****

“What do you mean you can’t charge her?” Snyder demanded. “She’s no longer a student. She was trespassing on my campus.”

“Look,” Ron tried to explain as patiently as he could, “I just spoke to her mother. She said she’s been home all day.”

“A mother’s alibi,” Snyder scoffed.

“You said yourself, Sheila would probably be relieved to have the girl locked up,” the Sheriff pointed out.

“Well, obviously I... miscalculated,” said Snyder crossly.

“I don’t think so,” his cousin countered. “I can’t tell that there’s any love lost between them. Besides, your own witnesses positively IDed half a dozen different girls. Most of them said they didn’t know who it was.”

“Half of them said it was Rosenberg,” Snyder insisted hotly.

“Half of the half that said they knew who it was,” Ron reminded him, “that’s one witness out of four.”

“What did the victim say?” Snyder demanded.

“You mean the kid with the gun?” Ron asked with grim amusement.

“Alleged gun,” Snyder retorted.

“Missing gun,” Ron corrected.

“Possible gun,” Snyder conceded, splitting the difference. “What did he say?”

“Amy Madison in the Hallway with the prop gun,” said Ron, laughing a little at his own joke.

“You never were any good at that game,” said Snyder sourly.

“You always cheated,” Ron pointed out.

“So cheat then,” Snyder suggested.

“We don’t have enough cards to cheat,” Ron insisted. “To cherry pick, you have to have cherries.”

“One out of four—” Snyder began to argue.

“But none of the ones who know her the best, and none of the one’s who say they got a really good look. You gonna sit there and tell me Gage Petronsi recognized her but Osborne and Harris didn’t”

“But they’re both in love with her,” Snyder pointed out.

“What about Jonathan Levinson, is he in love with her?”

“Could be,” Snyder opined stubbornly.

“What about Holly Charleston?” Ron demanded, “She was standing three feet away, and she saw a thirty-year-old brunette. She not the only one either.”

“Then charge the Harris boy,” Snyder demanded.

“With what?” Ron barked back, “felonious rescue of a beautiful stranger?”

“Hell,” said Snyder, “I’ll settle for Osborne,”

“We’ll never prove he really had a gun, any more than we can prove he didn’t against Harris.”

“And not one witness said they saw Buffy Summers!” Snyder fumed.

Ron’s voice was laced with grim amusement. “No, not one.”

****

Mrs. Osborne put her arms around Amy’s neck. “Sheila,” she said, “it’s so good to finally meet you **.”**

Amy favored her with a sad smile, “Well,” she said “I just wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

The skin on Willow’s neck felt like it was literally creeping, like it might crawl away. When she looked at Amy she saw... Amy. It was so bizarre to know that everyone else was seeing her mother. More disturbing still, was the _way_ she was seeing Amy. She kept thinking it was some residual effect from the Willard spell, that it would wear off. But it didn’t.

Amy was beautiful of course. She’d always know that. Even as a chubby twelve-year-old there had been...something about her, especially her eyes. Her skin had always been soft. Her lips had always been full and red and perfect foils to her lovely smile. But the way Willard had looked into those eyes, had touched that skin, had kissed those lips... It touched something new in Willow’s soul; something new that was, paradoxically, something old. Basic. Eternal.

‘But she’s a girl!’ A panicked voice in Willow’s mind called out. ‘Yes,’ said a much calmer, stronger voice, ‘exactly!’ That calm strong voice, the part of her that wasn’t scared, scared her more than anything. It was one thing to have temporary gay boy feeling for Xander when she was... not herself. The way her familiar, female flesh longed for the touch of Amy’s hands was something else altogether.

To make everything worse, they were here to see Oz. Willow wanted to see Oz, needed to see him, to be sure he was okay. She just wasn’t sure she wanted him to see her, especially with Amy, especially if while she was seeing Amy, he was seeing her mom.

“They’re only letting one person go back at a time,” Mrs. Osborne explained to Amy, to Willow’s great relief. Then she had guilt for feeling relieved. Oz must be in pretty bad shape.

He was. He was propped in a seated position. Both eyes were swollen nearly shut and his skin was a mottled purple. He smiled painfully. “Oh, Oz,” said Willow, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he pointed out.

“Well... no... I guess it’s not,” she admitted, not sure why she felt such a lack of conviction, “but I’m still... sorry you have to go through this.”

Oz tried to shrug, wincing from the effort. “I got a rib through the lung,” he said. “It happens.”

“Amy said they decided not to bring any charges,” Willow told him.

A shadow seemed to pass before Oz’s eyes at the mention of Amy’s name, but he was fine an instant later. The product of a guilty imagination, Willow supposed.

“How is Xander?” Oz asked.

“I don’t know,” Willow admitted. “I haven’t seen him. Freaked out, if I had to guess. I tried to call, but his mom said he wasn’t home. She’d probably say that even if he was, though. She’s been pissed ever since Mom had the funeral without telling her.”

“Listen, Willow,” Oz said seriously, “They’re going to send me home in three or four days, but the thing about a punctured lung is, you’re pretty much supposed to hold still for eight weeks, which is something I’m not very good at.”

Willow absorbed this information quietly. The wolf moon was one week away. “Do your parents know?” She asked.

“I tried to tell them,” he said, amused. “They’re chalking it up to head trauma. Uncle Ken’s going to explain it to them, after they calm down. Hopefully, I can take enough tranqs to sleep through it, but... if something goes wrong, from the tranqs or the lung, it could go wrong pretty quickly.”

Willow nodded, completely understanding what he was saying. “I love you, Oz,” she whispered.

“I love you too,” he assured her, “and I’m gonna say that a million times this week. You’ll get sick of hearing it. But first I’m gonna say something else, ‘cause I don’t want to waist the rest of this week thinking or talking about it: If something happens to me, if I don’t make it, don’t let Xander be too hard on himself. He did the right thing. You tell him that.”

 ****

It was nearly four o’clock by the time Buffy finally managed to escape from campus. Fifteen minutes later, she knocked on Giles door. She felt self consciously adolescent, wearing her gym clothes, for lack of anything else, her wet hair pulled back in a pony tail, nothing on her face but a little lip gloss.

Giles put down his scotch and his book and turned down Vivaldi’s ‘Summer’ on the stereo. He went to the door expecting either the furniture store delivering or the Goodwill taking away. It was Buffy.

He was surprised to see her. That much was clear. Happy was another question. He looked at her that same heartbreaking way he had at the hospital 23 hours earlier.

She smiled nervously. Her simple, clean appearance was the innocent soul of beauty. Her longing eyes struck him through the heart.

He smiled with warmth and tenderness and she could breathe again. “Come in,” he said.

Her smiling eyes lit up his heart with corresponding joy. She stepped across his threshold, holding her school books in front of her. A dubious portrait stared up at him from under an indubitably venerable name.

“Now there’s the fellow who could tell us a thing or two about love,” Giles said. For an instant Buffy wondered if he was joking. She stopped wondering, because it didn’t matter. He could think what he wanted about Shakespeare. He had said the one word they hadn’t dared to say for eleven endless days. Love.

The look she gave him at that word! Like he had rescued her from the jaws of Hell! He wanted to fold his arms around her, to protect her and consume her in one motion.

“Well, now I’ve gone and named the thing,” he said, his tone oddly apologetic.

“Hey, what’s in a name?” She smiled, trying to laugh it off.

“Everything,” he said hoarsely, “if it’s the right name.”

“What else would you call it?” she said, her voice heavy with emotion despite her best efforts.

He did pull her into his arms then, tucking her head under his chin, holding her tightly against him, terrified that she would read the answer in his eyes. “Love,” he said aloud, “please, let’s always call it love.” She murmured her assent against his neck. He thought his heart would burst, but his soul was still disquieted. Another name burned in his guilty mind: a noun, a verb, a word, a deed; a crime four letters long.

The doorbell rang. Giles released Buffy from his arms, laughing self consciously, “That of course will be my new mattress.”

“Presume much?” Buffy asked, eyes twinkling, feeling secure enough in his assurances of devotion to tease him just a little.

“Yes, I knew you’d be here,” he said with gentle sarcasm, “all part of my evil plan.”

It turned out to be Goodwill, which Buffy knew was just as well. She still had to be home in a little over an hour, and by the time she finished telling Giles everything she needed to tell him, she doubted if he’d be in any mood to break in a new mattress. Of course, she couldn’t tell him anything of substance, including the latest news from the Hellmouth, while the guys from Goodwill were there.

“How’s your head?” she asked, mainly for something to say. He failed to answer, failed to hear her, as he turned away, grim faced from the sight of the mattress two workmen were hoisting down the stairs, on which Angel had violated Jenny’s dead body twelve days earlier.

He caught Buffy staring at him in horrified sympathy. “I’m sorry, Buffy,” he said, seeming to take her look as one of censure, his own eyes begging pitifully for forgiveness.

“Don’t be,” she whispered, putting her arms around his neck, “I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to love two people if one of them is dead.” She stood on her toes and kissed him. The warmth of her lips melted a layer of frost from his heart and dulled the sudden ache he had felt for Jenny. The kiss deepened and for a moment, they were the only two people in the universe. He held her close and would have lifted her off her feet, but they were interrupted by the sound of one of the workmen clearing his throat with pointed disapproval. Blushing, Buffy released Giles. He straightened up embarrassed, making throat clearing noises himself.

“You’re receipt, _Sir_.” The man said contemptuously.

Giles took it from him, “Good day then,” he said with pointed courtesy, in a way that meant please feel free to leave my home immediately.

“Sorry,” said Buffy, when he was gone.

“Well it’s a small town,” Giles pointed out. “We both have to be more careful, otherwise, rumors will be going around in no time.” He hadn’t meant those words to sound like an admonishment, but they did, even to his own ears. Buffy gave him a miserable sort of look, one he knew a little too well. “What is it?” he asked apprehensively.

“You _might_ want to sit down,” she suggested, with a weak smile.

Giles rubbed his temples, suddenly feeling very tired. “You know I don’t like games, Buffy,” he said, looking her frankly in the eye.

“I’m pregnant,” she said, returning his gaze just as frankly. “I found out last night.”

His annoyed expression melted into a look of excruciating guilt and pity. “Oh, Buffy,” he gasped, I’m so sorry.”

“Wow,” Buffy teased, “remind me not to get one of those baby books that asks ‘what was the father’s first reaction?’”

“Buffy,” said Giles crossly, “this is nothing to joke about.”

“Well excuse me for trying to lighten the mood,” she said sullenly.

“Best to get this business taken care of as quickly as possible,” he went on meditatively, almost as if Buffy weren’t there. “Normally the Council would expect a report on this sort of thing, but given the circumstances...”

“Giles,” said Buffy seriously, “I’m not going to get anything ‘taken care of,’ with or without informing the Council.”

“What are you saying?” Giles asked. He seemed honestly perplexed.

“I’m having the baby,” Buffy explained resolutely.

“Buffy, don’t be ridiculous!” Giles scolded.

“ _Excuse_ me?” Buffy demanded, eyes flashing. “What did you just say to me?”

“It was... a poor choice of words,” he conceded, in a gentler tone. “But, surely you must realize there is only one sensible thing to do in this situation.”Somehow, this more reasonable tone—this earnest, caring, _parental_ tone—was even more infuriating than his initial angry castigation.

“You know what _Rupert_ ,” Buffy said savagely, “I think you’ve pretty much given up the right to talk to me like some kid who has to be told how to behave sensibly!”

“I may not have the right,” he conceded, “but as your Watcher I still have a responsibility to—”

“To what? Knock me up then order me to get rid of it?” Buffy demanded.

“Kn—Or—!...I—!” For once in his life, it took Giles more than a moment to find his tongue. He took off his glasses, as if he were going to clean them, but flung them down on the coffee table instead. “Nobody’s ordering you to do anything,” he said tensely, quietly, “But I would like to assume that you would want to do the responsible thing in this... situation.”

“Would you listen to yourself?” Buffy demanded. “‘Thing,’ ‘business,’ ‘situation’? You expect me to do something you can’t even bring yourself to say, and you act like it’s nothing!”

“Buffy,” he acknowledged, sounding a little less superior, “I know an... abortion is not nothing... and I know that my own reckless behavior is the primary cause of all this... difficulty...”

“Reckless behavior?” Buffy scoffed. “Thirty seconds ago we were calling it love. I think you just proved your writer friend wrong about something.” She declared bitterly. The allusion was so back handed that it took Giles a moment to catch it...squarely in the face. It was one of those dislocating moments when he was viscerally reminded of how easy it was to underestimate Buffy, and how foolish.

“I love you!” he shouted, with both sincerity and exasperation, “I just don’t understand why you’re so hell bent on turning both our lives inside out! Never mind the law, and the school and the sodding Council; what about that ‘normal life’ you’re always complaining about not having?”Giles took a deep breath, trying unsuccessfully to get a hold of himself. “Buffy, you’re seventeen years old!” he shouted.

“And I might not live to be eighteen!” she retorted. “I _probably_ won’t live to be twenty-five, so don’t you ‘someday’ me like you don’t know any better!”

Giles sat down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t have an adequate response to that.” He admitted, getting a handle on himself at last.

“I have more to say,” Buffy announced sulkily, “if you’re done shouting at me.”

Giles sighed. “What is it?”

“When I tell you,” she warned, “you’re gonna be mad again.”

“Good Lord,” he murmured, brows knitted, “what on Earth could you possibly be afraid to tell me after that?”

Buffy took a deep breath. “There _are_ rumors,” she said finally, “all over school... about us, all thanks to Amy Madison.”

“Good Lord!” Giles gasped for the second time in less than a minute.

“Willow must have told her everything,” Buffy acknowledged. “Amy also told everyone I was pregnant. I mean... she was just guessing, but it was a good guess.”

“Does Snyder know?” Giles squawked incredulously.

“He doesn’t believe it,” Buffy said. “He actually called me into his office and accused me of starting the rumors just to hurt the reputation of ‘his’ school.”

“Humph,” Giles snorted scornfully, “typical Snyder. Thank God he’s such an idiot. Still, he may believe it when he has more evidence. Not that we could really hope to keep this a secret indefinitely in any case if you’re... determined in this... course of action.” Giles went on relentlessly. “We’re talking, after all, about bringing a human being into the world. I’m sure eventually someone’s likely to notice, your mother for instance.”

Buffy sighed. She knew he was right. “We’ll... figure it out as we go along,” she said finally, for lack of something better to say.

“Even if we manage to convince this whole town and your parents that... someone else... is responsible,” he persisted, “the Council won’t be as easily fooled.”

This time Buffy was the one without an adequate response. She sat down next to Giles and took his hand, needing reassurance that he was still with her in the broadest sense, regardless of where they stood on this largest of all possible details. “We’ll figure it out,” she repeated warmly, with more conviction than she actually felt.

Giles squeezed her hand in return, “Yes, we will,” he agreed with equal warmth and affection. “I love you Buffy, I mean that, always, no matter what.”

“Good,” she said with a wan smile, “because there’s more.”

“I swear to God, Buffy, if you’re trying to kill me, one well place blow to the head would be the kinder method.”

“I had to talk to Xander about something, Hellmouth stuff, and the subject of all these rumors came up. I mean ... I couldn’t exactly lie to him about it...”

“I could have,” said Giles tersely.

“Well, I didn’t,”said Buffy, “and now he’s all pissed off about it.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Giles murmured. “There’s nothing quite so bruising to the male ego as to lose to someone you don’t even see as qualified to compete.”

Buffy sighed, laying her head on Giles’ chest. “Someday you guys have got to print up a set of rules to this game you’re all playing so us girls can keep score.”

“Happily,” Giles agreed, putting his arm around her, “as soon as you girls can come up with a set of rules to explain what makes someone like Harmony Kendall the unchallengeable leader of all female society at Sunnydale High.”

“Our ways can sometimes be mysterious to the uninitiated,” Buffy conceded. She sat up abruptly, “Actually, though, she’s not so unchallengeable right now. There are things going on,” she said. “Hellmouth stuff. Some kind of ... something possessing students.” She briefly explained the events at school that day and her dream from that morning, leaving out the business about Angel’s ring and the feelings it had brought up.

Giles sighed. “The world is too much with us, late and soon...” he murmured tiredly, regretfully.

“All work and no play,” Buffy agreed, “That’s life on the Hellmouth. So what do you think it is?”

“Well... it’s certainly some form of paranormal phenomena. If it were just the dreams and visions, I’d say perhaps some future portent, but this...scene that Willow and Oz were acting out... that makes me think more of ghosts. You see it’s quite common for a spirit to reenact a past event, using various methods... possession of the living sometimes being one of them.”

“So how do we stop it?”

“Well, the only tried and true way is to work out whatever unresolved issues keep the spirit trapped on this plane and...resolve them.”

“Fabulous,” said Buffy, “now we’re Dr. Laura for the Deceased.”

“Yes, well, that’s assuming it is a ghost and not some other sort of being... toying with humans for its own amusement, which is also common enough, unfortunately.”He stood up, turning half away from her, took out his pocket watch and flipped it open to check the time. It was one of those dislocating moments. He was like a character in a novel from another time period. He was a sophisticated Edwardian gentleman. She was a pregnant ex-cheerleader slouching on his couch in her gym clothes.

“You probably had better get home,” he said. “I’ll go to the library and see what I can find out.” After a beat, he added, amused at himself in some way Buffy was not in on, “I’ll give you a ride in my new car if you like.”

The doorbell rang. “If that’s a new mattress,” Buffy said, “it gets a worst timing ever award.” Giles smiled and gave her a small pat on the shoulder as he turned to open the door. It was his new bedroom suit, mattress and all. But it was time to take Buffy home.

 


	9. Crisis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Giles has a theory about who Sunnydale's own Poltergeist is... or was. Amy has a plan to bind the heart of her beloved. Cordelia has a strategy for making Xander all that he can be. Buffy's parents try to present a united front as they see her life once again descending into chaos. Meanwhile, back at the Hellmouth, Spike has plans of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II: What We Make

It was after five o’clock by the time Joyce was finally able to get the Gallery cleared of customers and locked up for the day, but she still had one thing to do before she could go home. She sat at her desk in the back office and dialed the most familiar number in the world. She had gotten to the point that, most times, she could dial it without feeling an overwhelming sense of loss and dread. This was not one of those times.

“Hello,” he called cheerfully, no doubt expecting someone else.

“It’s me,” she said. “I got your message.”

“Oh good,” Hanks said, sounding relieved, “I can pick her up from school on Friday, if that’s alright,”

“Hank,” Joyce said tiredly, emotionally drained already by the fight she knew they were about to have, “it’s not that simple.”

“Of course it is,” said Hank dismissively, “it’s my weekend.”

“She has to be home,” Joyce explained patiently, “at my house, in Sunnydale, by 6pm, every night, or they’re going to lock her up.”

“Well, she can be home at my house by six o’clock,” Hank argued in the look-how-reasonable-I-can-be tone that he only used when he was feeling really petulant.

Joyce took a deep breath. “The Court papers specifically say—” she began.

“I have court papers too, Joyce,” Hank pointed out, his more-reasonable-than-thou tone increasingly strained, “from Los Angeles County. That’s got to trump whatever bush court they have down there in Sunnydale.”

“It doesn’t work that way!” Joyce countered, exasperated.

“Alright, fine, you tell me how it works, Joyce!” Hank shouted, suddenly dropping all pretense of civility. “I’m only the CFO of a multimillion dollar company! I need you, _Ms._ Joyce Summers, art historian, to tell me how it works!!”

“Quit shouting at me,” she said coolly, quietly.

“Oh that’s right,” said Hank bitterly, “now you’re going to _reason_ with me. Model of restraint and decorum that you are(!)”

“Don’t you think I _want_ you to take Buffy for the weekend?” Joyce demanded. “I’m supposed to be in Sacramento haggling over East African burial masks. I’ve been planning this trip for weeks. Now, I’m going to have to call and cancel so I can spend the whole weekend playing warden! God! If you could feel the tension in this house!”

“Well maybe if you hadn’t let Buffy walk all over you for the last two years,” said Hank icily, “you wouldn’t be having all this trouble. She never acts this way when she’s with me.”

“Which is how often Hank? One out of every dozen weekends and a couple of months in the summer? Maybe if you’d remember to notice she’s alive once in a while, our daughter wouldn’t need to have sex with a murderer to get our attention.”

“You don’t know that’s what happened,” said Hank defensively.

“Yes, I do Hank,” she said bitterly. “Buffy’s pregnant.”

****

Edwards shielded his eyes with his hands, wishing he had something to shield his hands with. Spike sniffed scornfully, but he turned up the collar on his black leather coat. The dim afternoon rays angled their way into the damp, foul smelling chamber through the large grate from the opening above and perpendicular to it. Edwards didn’t know if his eyes were watering more from the sun or from the sickening chemical stench of the place.

Spike eyed the hatch in the ceiling, ten feet above their heads, with insufficient caution. Edwards was sure that he was seconds away from leaping up and opening it when they heard the voices: two humans in the chamber above.

“Are you sure about this, Karl?” A grating, unattractive female voice demanded worriedly.

“Ruthie,” crowed a confident older male voice, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life! We’re going straight to the national championships!”

“But is it worth the risk, Karl?”

“What kind of a question is that? Don’t you want to be a winner for once in your life, Ruthie?”

“You know I do,” she said desperately, “more than anything,” torn between fear and temptation as humans so often were.

“Well... there you go then,” said Karl, as if everything were satisfactorily concluded. Maybe it was. The woman didn’t respond, at least not loudly enough to be heard in the lower chamber. Perhaps they’d gone. Edwards breathed a sigh of relief. The radiation level in the subterranean space was becoming tolerable as the sun began to set at last. If they could just rest here a few minutes...

The vampires’ ears were greeted by the metal on metal sound of the small ceiling hatch being opened. Edwards flattened himself into a corner and covered his face, preparing for a potential flood of sunlight. Spike leapt vertically to the top of the chamber and pulled the hapless human through the opening. The beefy, gray haired man made a loud, startled noise somewhere between a shout and a moan, which was cut off abruptly as Spike slammed him to the concrete floor, where his head made a sickening, wet cracking sound. In the room above the woman screamed and began to flee. The sound of her heavy, broad soled feet slapping against the tile floor above echoed down into the drainage space.

“Come _on_ ,” Spike ordered as he leapt up once again and scrambled through the opening to chase after her. To his great relief, Edwards found that the room above was a windowless utility space, even darker than the drain below. The place was at once cavernous and cramped, stuffed with equipment and supplies that Edwards could not identify.

Spike caught up to the woman in seconds, a behemoth in a white nurse’s uniform. She whimpered softy, lips trembling, trying to get it together enough to speak, to beg for her life, Edwards supposed. Spike casually snapped her neck.

Edwards stared at him in mute anger, born of fear. Their presence beneath the school was supposed to be a secret. That scream could have brought any number of witnesses. It could have brought the Slayer. It still could.

“Relax,” Spike said, guessing his thoughts. “She’ll tell no more tales. Look at the size of her, though,” he added thoughtfully. “We could fill that tub in no time we catch a few whoppers like this.”

“They have to be virgins,” Edwards reminded him. Spike apprised the doughy faced nurse skeptically. She was forty if she was a day. He had to admit, over a long enough time-span, someone had probably found her mountable.

He shrugged. “Have a look anyway,” he told Edwards, “never hurts to be sure.”

 ****

“Wow,” Buffy teased when Giles opened up the garage to reveal his shiny new red convertible, “how’s that midlife crisis coming along.”

“I’m not really sure,”Giles admitted, with a small, self deprecating laugh. “On the one hand,” he said, taking both of her hands in his, giving her a quick kiss, “I have just been told by a beautiful...” She kissed him in return, not much longer than a peck, but fierce, passionate. “Intelligent...” He kissed her a little slower, a little more deeply, leaning her back against the car. “Passionate young girl...” they kissed more slowly and more deeply still. “That she loves me and wants to have my baby.” He kissed her throat, running his hands up the front of her sweat shirt.

“On the other hand...” she prompted, her arms around his neck, finger threaded through his hair, pulling his mouth to hers again.

“Sod the other hand,” Rupert said, lifting her up and sitting her down on the hood of the car. She kept her hands around his neck, pulling him down on top of her. He had her shirt pulled half way up, ready to lift it over her head when a car drove by on the street, reminding them that the garage door was up, and that they were actually meant to be going someplace. They, froze in place, then stood and straightened their clothes, laughing self-consciously.

“We’ve got to stop doing that,” he said with an embarrassed smile.

“We’ve got to finish doing that,” Buffy corrected, “soon, or I might die of frustration.”

Rupert laughed almost maniacally, grinning from ear to ear. “Either I’m the luckiest bastard that ever lived,” he said, “or I’ve finally gone completely mad.”

Buffy smiled, getting in on the passenger’s side, “It can’t be both?”

****

Amy drove the Lexis back to Willow’s house, getting behind the wheel without asking, as if the face she presented to the world made her feel entitled. Willow got in on the passenger side and said nothing. After everything Amy had done for her today, she didn’t want to seem petty, but the whole situation made her uneasy.

“Do you want to go out tonight?” Amy asked along the way, eyes twinkling with mischief, “I still have all the stuff I need for Willard. It’s easier the second time.”

Some sort of horrible communion occurred between Willow’s heart and her stomach. She had absolutely no desire to be Willard ever again... unless you counted a desire to have Amy look at her the way she had looked at him. “I love Oz!” she declared, surprising herself with her own ferocity.

“Well I wasn’t propositioning you!” Amy snarled, offended. “I just thought you might want to be able to get out of the house. Go spend the whole night with your mom if you want. Hell, prop her up in a rocking chair and talk to her for all I care.”

“That’s not funny,” Willow squeaked, shuttering at the image invoked by Amy’s little homage de film.

“Oh lighten up,” said Amy with a cruel little smile. “We can hang around the house if you want. I’m sure we’ll find something interesting to do.”

 ****

When they pulled up in front on the house on Revello Drive, Joyce was standing in the driveway, hands on her hips. Buffy quickly let go of Giles’ hand. She glanced at the dashboard clock. It was 5:45.

As Buffy got out of the vehicle, her mother walked up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Where have you been?” she demanded. So much for ‘earned trust.’

“At... school,” said Buffy unconvincingly.

Joyce stuck her head into the sleek little red car, heart hammering, more than half expecting to see Angel or some other thug. It was Mr. Giles. Joyce didn’t know what to think. “You weren’t supposed to work today,” she pointed out.

“I... saw Buffy walking home,” the librarian explained, “thought I’d give her a ride in my new car.”

“She’s late,” said Joyce coolly.

“It is only a quarter to six,” Giles pointed out, rushing to Buffy’s defense without thinking. He could have kicked himself. The look Buffy shot him through the window, over Joyce’s shoulder, said she could have kicked him too.

“She’s not your daughter,” Joyce said icily, then, turning to Buffy, “I want you to get inside, get _dressed_ , wash a load of dishes and start setting the table for dinner. Set an extra place. Your father will be here at 8:00.”

“What?” Buffy asked, “Why would—?”

“I said get inside!” Joyce commanded fiercely. “Now!”

Seeing the fire flashing in her mother eyes, Buffy quelled her impulse to protest further. As she slouched sulkily towards the house, Joyce rounded on Giles. Though he had clearly already overstepped his bounds (even assuming he was telling the truth about when and how he had picked Buffy up) he still seemed to be struggling with the impulse to say something more on her behalf.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Joyce said with quiet anger. “You don’t live anywhere near the mall, do you?”

“No,” said Giles neutrally, not liking where this was going.

“So how is it, then, that Angel came to steal _your_ car when he... ‘kidnapped’ Buffy?”

“You’d have to ask Buffy that,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, the police already did,” Joyce informed him. “She told them she was running away from him and decided to head towards your house to try to get help. The only thing is, my Gallery is four blocks from where she says they came up from the sewers. Buffy knows I work late on Saturdays. So, why is she going to you for help and not to me?”

“I can’t answer that,” Giles told her, managing with great difficulty to look her in the eye.

“Oh, I think you can,” said Joyce bitterly, “and one day soon, I think you will.”

Buffy was still in her gym clothes, loading the dishwasher, when Joyce came into the kitchen. “Where are your clothes?” she asked.

“In my gym locker,” said Buffy truthfully. “I decided to take a shower.”

“Why?” her mom asked, quietly but with an unnerving implication of significance.

“I went for a run on the track,” Buffy lied.

“In your street clothes.” Said Joyce, with flat disbelief.

“Why is Dad coming to dinner?” Buffy asked.

“I was hoping you’d tell me,” said Joyce with suppressed anger.

She knew, Buffy realized. That was the only explanation. But how did she know? Did she really know or just think she knew? Was there a chance of successfully playing dumb? If so, then what? The truth would be undeniable soon enough.

“Because I’m pregnant,” Buffy said flatly.

Joyce blinked a little, as though she were absorbing a shock, but recovered quickly. “What happened to your clothes?” she repeated.

“I threw up on them, alright?” Buffy confirmed, exasperated, “Jesus, Mom, is that really the most important thing in your life right now?”

“No,” said Joyce, with excessive definiteness, “it’s not. Is it Angel’s?” The question caught Buffy off guard. She hadn’t realized her Mom suspected her of being with anyone else. Was that why she had been so bitchy to Giles just now? Did it show that much? Could everyone tell? Oz had apparently known without being told. Had Amy? Or, worse still, had the rumors of their love already escaped the bound of Sunnydale High and spread among the adult population?

“Is it?” Joyce repeated.

Buffy nodded, “yeah, it’s Angel’s baby.”

“Are you still seeing him?” Joyce demanded.

Buffy knew she should have been relieved to know that this was still her mother’s worst fear and strongest suspicion, but she couldn’t stand the implication that she was such a... whatever it was you would have to be to sleep with a mass murderer who’d ripped your best friend’s heart out. “I swear to you,” Buffy assured her, “I haven’t seen Angel since the night he killed Dr. Rosenberg.”

“I hope not,” said Joyce fervently, “I certainly hope not.”

****

Giles walked into the library and turned on the lights. It was the same as it had ever been. Occult books filled the shelves. Weapons rested unseen in their cabinets. His private office waited, jammed with its neatly organized clutter of items significant only to him.

But it was different. It didn’t feel like his private domain anymore, his place of refuge, his stronghold in the fight against evil. It felt vulnerable, exposed. It felt like a public school library. A ridiculous place to carry on a clandestine war. A worse place for a secret affair.

With Buffy in his arms, he’d felt so high, so strong, that it seemed like even the mess their lives were unraveling into could be straightened out one way or another. Young love makes lovers young and youth in love is bold and full of reckless joy. But the minute he’d dropped her off and found himself a lone middle aged librarian again, trying to justify to himself the lies he was telling her mother, he’d come down with a discernible crash.

It wasn’t only that he feared the practical consequences of being caught in a relationship that transgressed the laws and mores of both societies in which he simultaneously lived his life, though that was no frivolous matter in itself. It was more that he had no trouble seeing the point of view from which those laws and mores could be judged to be correct. He felt ashamed to look Joyce Summers in the eye and tell her that he’d done nothing more than give her daughter a ride home, just as he would have felt ashamed to tell his own father to his face that he was not responsible for the condition of his Slayer. It had been a very long time since he’d thought of himself as the kind of man that parents couldn’t trust around their daughters, and almost as long since he’d thought of himself as someone the Council couldn’t trust carry out its most basic edicts. Unlike in his youth, he was not proud of either distinction.

He stared a long while at the seamlessly repaired floor, at the place where the Earthquake had cracked it nine months ago. The mouth of Hell waited there, beneath his feet, as it always had. But tonight it felt more alive somehow. Watchful.

Of course, Buffy would be furious at the suggestion that he was taking advantage of her because it implied that he had her at a disadvantage. The only trouble was that it was true. Granted, Buffy was different from other girls her age. She was exceptional. She was a brave, resourceful, formidable young woman who would someday be far more than a match for him. She was also a volcano of sexual energy in desperate need of an outlet, and she walked in a world that no ordinary teenage boy could safely inhabit. But she was still seventeen to his forty-seven, Slayer to his Watcher, student to his teacher.

Buffy depended on him, and not merely in the way that all lovers depended on each other. He was her main source of guidance as to who and what she was, not only as the Slayer, but as a soon-to-be-adult. For more than a year, she had come to him with the problems and concerns she withheld from her own parents. He had been privy to information about her romantic and sexual life that no grown man outside her family had any right to know. He had been trusted with these confidences at least in part because he was placed in a position of authority over her by the Council. More importantly (though she would probably be the last to admit it) on a most basic level, she _accepted_ his authority over her as the price of his guidance and protection.

‘Protection’, Rupert laughed bitterly to himself. He knew what kind of protection the Council really offered to Slayers, and under what conditions. But Buffy didn’t, not yet. As Celeste had put it, shortly before her own untimely death, ‘the shepherd may be fond of the sheep, but he makes his money at the slaughter house.’Buffy may have thought she was choosing her own destiny in pursuing this relationship; but Rupert knew full well that if she had had any idea what the man she had invited into her heart, into her _body_ ,planned to put her through in ten short months, she would have chosen differently. Rupert was not Buffy’s equal. He was her elder and in many way, her inferior. He was not her partner but her handler, a shepherd in the pay of butchers. Telling himself he was in love with her didn’t change any of that, even though it was also true.

Tearing his eyes away from the floor, leaving the Gordian knot unsolved, he walked to his office to get a note pad. He intending to make some notes of the phenomena Buffy had described, to try to rule out a few possibilities as to what it could be. In the middle of his desk was a large cardboard box. Scrawled across it in black magic marker was the legend, ‘J.C.’s stuff.’ The box was full of personal things; books, a sweater, a day planner, one corkscrew-like ‘earring’; which had obviously been left in her classroom. There were a handful of not-so-floppy disks as well, which Giles realized, for Jenny, could very easily be personal things.

It struck him how little they had actually known one another, how little they had lived in each other’s worlds. He had called it a betrayal that she kept her origins from him and counted himself honest for sharing the secrets that he was a Watcher, Buffy the Slayer. But, the truth was, he had shared nothing with her of what it _meant_ to be a Watcher; though perhaps, being a Gypsy, she’d had some idea of that after all. He thought of the days he had wasted being angry with her, feeling wounded and superior because she had kept her own counsel, made her own judgments about whom to trust and what to reveal, just as he had.

Suddenly, he felt... not a presence exactly, nor an absence, as he had felt in the cemetery that morning. He felt a sort of calling _to_ a presence, a longing that promised to be fulfilled. As if in response to an unheard command, he reached into the box and pulled out a yellow 3 ½ inch disk. It felt extremely important in his hand, powerful, dangerous. The disk bore a hand-printed label: RESTORATION.

With a little cry of surprise, he dropped the disk back into the box. Whatever it was that had...reached out to him... was gone. That label couldn’t mean what he had momentarily thought that it meant. He was sure he had heard Willow or Oz or someone use that same term in a computer related context. It was something for fixing operating system crashes or what have you. That was all it was. He was sure of it.

His hands still shaking, he reached back into the box, this time seizing upon something familiar and comforting. It was a large rose quartz suspended from a leather strap. He had given it to Jenny, after the incident with Eyghon, correctly guessing that she would be familiar with its well known healing powers. The gift had been well received, if not the giver. She had told him during their next reconciliation that she’d worn it next to her heart in the intervening weeks, that it had helped to bring her to a decision to come back to him.

Tying the leather strap around his neck, Rupert let the large crystal drop beneath his shirt, where his tie helped to conceal it. He still didn’t feel Jenny’s presence, but he felt comforted a little. Of course, he realized, if Jenny had been present, even in spirit, she couldn’t have been very happy with him. Her blood had not been cold when he had betrayed her, and with the one person, he now realized, he had always put before her when she was alive, with Buffy.

He thought of the incident with Xander, Oz and Willow. According to what Xander had told Buffy, the student body in general hadn’t seen anything supernatural about it. They had taken it at face value as a lovers’ quarrel, and no wonder. Every word, every action as it had been described to him was a perfect representation of a spurned lover clinging to the broken point of a triangle. ‘A person doesn’t just wake up one day and stop loving somebody....’

In Buffy’s dream, the same words had been spoken by Angel, by Jenny’s murderer. The ‘ceremony’ that had been interrupted thereby hardly required a deep and careful analysis. “...love is forever,” the killer had said, pointing his gun like the finger of blame at the person who had come between Jenny and the hope of everlasting love, at the person for whose benefit as it were she had been killed, at Buffy.

Suddenly, horribly, Rupert realized that Jenny’s spirit _was_ present here, even if he couldn’t feel it directly. She was reaching out to him, trying to communicate with him to tell him that she was trapped, unable to move on, because of what he had done to her. Jenny was dead for one very simple reason: because she had loved him while he loved Buffy. Obviously, her spirit was very angry, and she wouldn’t be going anywhere until she’d found a way to have it out with him.

****

“Are you sure about this?” said Amy skeptically. “Why don’t we just do a locator spell?”

“We don’t have anything of his,” Willow reminded her. “Besides, this is better. It will show us where all the demons in Sunnydale are, and according to the book, they’re color coded, so we should be able to find all the vampires at once.”

“But we won’t know which one’s Angel?” Amy pointed out nervously.

“True,” said Willow, “but I’ve been thinking about it. Angel has... an authoritative presence, and so do Spike and Drusilla too really. If any of the three of them are still alive, they’ll be gathering forces for another attack on Buffy. I figure, if we find the biggest clump of vampires in town, that’s where they’ll be.”

“But still...” said Amy, “the Goddess Thespia...? I mean, should we really be bothering her with this. She’s very busy and very picky, and I don’t think she and Hecate get along at all. I mean, I’ll be into gifts and supplications for weeks to make it up to her.”

A jealous god? Willow had to admit it was a disquieting thought, for more than one reason. Truth-be-told, in the weeks that she’d been learning magic, she had treated the invocations as just another part of the recipe: add the right ingredients, say the right words and Presto! Instant accomplishment. She hadn’t given much thought to the sources of the powers being invoked.

Willow recalled the night of Ms. Calendar’s murder, the last night of her father’s life though she hadn’t know it at the time. She remembered how anxious she had felt, nailing those crucifixes to her bedroom wall. But it had been her father, not his God, that she had been worried about displeasing. Of course, technically, she guessed that they had been calling on that same God... but still... she had to admit that her life had gone downhill pretty quickly from there.

“Look,” she said, stuffing all these unsettling possibilities back into the recesses of her mind, “Buffy needs this. We may be the only ones who can help her. Are you with me or not?”

Amy sighed. “I’m with you,” she said, “on one condition.”

“Of course,” said Willow, “whatever you want.”

“All right,” she said, smiling nervously, “I want Willard to come with me to the Sadie Hawkins Dance on Friday.”

****

“Could be a lesbian,” Spike ruminated, staring up at the massive alabaster nakedness of Ruth Greenly. She was suspended upside down from the ceiling, blood still dripping from her throat, like a kosher butcher’s cow, but she was basically drained. Her blood filled nearly a tenth of the basin, about fourteen pints to the average high school girl’s eight or nine. Twelve to sixteen girls to go.

“Do lesbians count as virgins Dru?” he asked.

Drusilla looked up from her work, feeding the scarred and swaddled Angel some of the old man’s blood through a straw. “A flower’s not a mandolin,” she said, shaking her head at the need to explain something so obvious and simple, “if you strum it, you don’t pluck it.”

Spike shrugged. What was the worst that could happen? The ritual wouldn’t work? That was fine with him. He was finally getting his strength back, starting to feel like himself again. Soon the balance of power between him and Dru would be shifting. She’d be ruled by him soon enough. If he could just get her to let go of Angel.

****

By 7:45, there was not one single thing that could possibly be done to make anything even the slightest bit more ready for dinner. Buffy and Joyce were forced to sit on the sofa and try to avoid being obvious about not looking at each other. Joyce fussed with the cuffs on her jacket and picked invisible lint from her linen pants.

Maybe he would be a couple of minutes early, Buffy thought, smoothing her hands over her pleated skirt, wondering if she should have worn something more grown up. Or maybe he would be late, she thought, straightening her collar, wondering if maybe she should button the top button even though you weren’t supposed to. Waiting to be confronted by her father felt like waiting to vomit. She knew what was coming and that there was nothing she could do to stop it. She dreaded it, but she wanted it to be over.

Several eternities later, the doorbell rang. Maybe it’s someone else, Buffy hoped. But within a minute, Joyce was showing Hank inside. He was all casually affectionate greetings and smiles of friendly concern. Buffy wondered if she was supposed to know he knew she was pregnant, supposedly by a fugitive psycho killer. If so, she didn’t think he was striking quite the right note. There was no way he could have mellowed out this much in the last six months. He had another shoe in his hand, and before the night was over, he was going to drop it. Of course, she had enough shoes stuffed in her proverbial closet to start an outlet store, Buffy reminded herself, but still...

“I swear,” said Hank, his tone impossible to read, “you look more grown up every time I see you.”

“I should,” said Buffy, never one to wait to be attacked, “it’s been since January. The last time you saw me I was still technically sixteen.” She didn’t say, ‘and a virgin.’

“I’ve been busy,” he said in an I’m-being-very-patient-because-I’m-a-great-guy kind of way, “you know how things get at work this time of year.”

Buffy knew. “And yet you’re making the time to drive all the way down here and eat with us like a real family,” she said with mock gratitude. “I should have gotten knocked up two years ago.”

“Buffy—” Joyce began plaintively.

“So,” Hank cut her off icily, “now you’ve both agreed this is my fault.”

“Nobody’s saying that,” said Joyce reasonably.

“The hell they’re not!” Hank shouted. “This is all ‘cause I didn’t pay her enough attention, isn’t that what you said on the phone?”

“It was a reaction,” said Joyce, “to you blaming me for Buffy’s... legal problems.”

“See, this is why I can’t talk to you, you can’t take constructive criticism.”

“Calling me a doormat who can’t discipline my own child is not constructive criticism, Hank!”

“So you’re saying she _doesn’t_ walk all over you?” Hank demanded, indicating Buffy with a gesture, as though she were exhibit A, which she guessed she was. “You’re saying it’s perfectly fine with you if she climbs out the window and goes running around town with criminals in the middle of the night! You’re in complete control; that’s not a problem you need help with!”

“I didn’t say I don’t need help!” Joyce shot back, “but calling long distance once every two or three months to tell me what I’m doing wrong is not helping!”

“Well I’m not the one who moved three hours away, Joyce. That was your decision.”

“You agreed with me that we shouldn’t fight the expulsion,” Joyce pointed out, “how else was I supposed to get the school to drop the charges?”

“That didn’t mean you had to take off for—”

“Oh yes, because the Los Angeles Department of Alternative Education... that’s really where we want our only daughter to go to school! What’s she gonna learn, advanced drug dealing? I just wanted her to have a normal life again!”

“Well that plan worked out really well, then, didn’t it?!” Hank shouted back. “Now she’d just a carefree small-town girl who happens to be pregnant by a double murderer!”

“Okay, both you guys,” said Buffy, fighting tears, “Just stop it, okay?! Quit blaming each other! This isn’t some... cry for help. It’s not ‘testing behavior’ or a quest for a new father figure. It’s just me screwing up my life as per usual. So why don’t we just all agree that I’m to blame and we can conclude the blame assigning portion of this evening’s program, alright?”

“Are you going to let her talk to you like that?” Hank demanded of Joyce.

“Oh my God, seriously?” said Buffy, “That’s your response?”

“Dinner’s getting cold,” said Joyce.

“Fine,” said Hank, crossing his arms over his chest and stomping into the dining room, fuming. Buffy threw her hands up, rolled her eyes and sighed. Joyce shook her head at both of them, thinking that if she was the ‘calm’ one in the family right now, it was going to be a long, stormy evening.

Utensils clinked and scraped on plates and serving dishes. Bites of food were choked down in tense silence. It was beginning to feel like any other night of the week, when Hank said, “I don’t think I have insurance for this.”

“Why not?” Joyce asked.

“Maternity coverage is only for employees and spouses,” he said.

“It’s not under maternity coverage,” said Joyce, “it’s gynecology.”

“I don’t know if she has that either.”

“They paid for her pap smear.” Joyce pointed out.

I’m sitting right here, Buffy thought, aren’t I? They can still see me right? She held up a hand in front of her face. It looked solid enough.

“Well we’re not talking about a Goddamn pap smear, Joyce.” Said Hank with barely suppressed heat.

“Excuse me,” said Buffy, “but how does either of you know what you’re talking about? You haven’t even asked me what I’m going to do.”

That got their attention anyway. “Now, Buffy—” Hank started in literally wagging his finger trying the calm but stern voice this time.

“I’m having my baby,” said Buffy definitively, “and I’m keeping it.”

Her father was momentarily speechless.

“Oh, Buffy,” said Joyce, more concerned than disapproving, “are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she said, firmly, calmly, “I really am.”

Tears welled up in Joyce’s eyes. She squeezed her daughter’s hand under the table, looking sad and loving and supportive and disappointed, all at the same time.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Hank shouted. “What are you going to do with a baby? Take it to school and leave it in your locker?”

“Hank—” Joyce started in a warning sort of tone.

“I don’t know,” Buffy admitted angrily, “but I’ll figure it out. I’m not an idiot, God!”

“Then quit acting like one!” Hank shouted.

“Now wait just a minute—” Joyce began, getting angry with him again herself.

“You want her to throw her whole life away?!” he demanded.

“Of course not,” Joyce acknowledged, “but it’s not up to us, Hank.”

“I’m not throwing anything away!” Buffy insisted.

“What about college?” her father demanded.

“Yeah,” said Buffy sarcastically, “ _I’m_ going to go to college(!) I’m gonna plan my whole life around the prospect of going to college(!) My GPA’s two point nothing, and that’s mostly because I made good grades freshman year at Hemery. What are my extracurricular activities? Arson and prescription drug fraud? Which apparently I suck at—the fraud I mean, I totally lettered in arson.”

“And somehow that makes you ready to be a mother?” Hank demanded.

“I’ll _get_ ready,” Buffy insisted.

“What are you going to do for money?” Hanks challenged. “Are you going to live off your mother the rest of your life? Because you’re not living off of me for another eighteen years, I’ll tell you that right now!”

“Now _you’re_ being ridiculous,” Joyce said to him critically.

“I mean it,” he insisted, getting his voice, if not his temper under control. "You do this, Buffy, then come January, you’ll never see another dime from me.”

Buffy laughed bitterly. “Would you listen to yourself?” she scoffed. “‘...hang, starve, beg in the streets...’ I mean, you’re acting a little overly, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Buffy, you tell me, as a _parent_ , how are you gonna react when your kid comes home and tells you she wants you to support her the rest of her life and raise her kids while she goes out and parties all night with her fellow lunatics and criminals?!”

Buffy looked up at the ceiling and blew out a deep breath of frustration. She shook her head. There was nothing she could say to him.

“That’s enough, Hank,” said Joyce quietly.

“Yeah, it is,” said Hank bitterly, throwing his napkin down in his plate as he stood up to leave. “I can see nobody needs me around here. You _ladies_ obviously have everything under control.”

****

♫ The way you love. ♪

      ♫Have you got a name for it?♪

          ♫Cause I don’t understand it...♪

Cordelia sat on the familiar couch in the familiar club, listing to the familiar lame, depressing music and struggling with a very unfamiliar feeling of helplessness. She ran her fingers absently through the head of hair in her lap. Physically, it was attached to Xander, but in every way that mattered he was very far away. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t asleep, just shutting out the world, including her. His knuckles were still skinned and swollen from the now legendary rescue of Willow Rosenberg, but his whole fund of conversation on the short drive from his house had been nothing but Buffy Summers.

Buffy was making a mistake. Buffy was being used. Buffy was making a fool of herself, throwing away her affections on a man who was not of her kind, who couldn’t possible really love her. And woe to anyone who dared to point out that a girl who’d died and risen again, who’d once bedded a demon and who routinely killed monsters with her bare hands was more than woman enough to defend herself against the dubious wiles of a middle aged English librarian.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” said Cordelia, her tone perfectly casual, “I think we should go to that dance on Friday after all.”

Xander opened his eyes. “The Sadie Hawkins Dance? I thought we were boycotting.”

“I changed my mind,” she said, “I’m the girl. That’s allowed.”

“I’ll go if you want,” he said, sitting up, “I just really don’t get why. I mean, yesterday you agreed with me that guys should be guys and girls should be girls. Life has rules and borders and an end zone. Otherwise, chaos.”

“Oh, relax,” she teased, “I’ll still let you pay for the tickets.”

“You’re all heart,” he said dryly.

“It’s just...” Cordelia tried to be precise about what she meant without putting too fine a point on the problem she was having, “this is an opportunity for us, what with you being the big hero and all, at the very same time that Harmony’s showing everyone what a moron she is...”

“Ah,” said Xander, actually looking at her now, the familiar smirk entering his voice for the first time of the evening, “You’re using me for my cool points. I’m actually worthy enough to be used!”

“Such is life in a borderless chaotic world,” said Cordelia, gently sardonic.

“Man!” said Xander, “it is that!” Cordelia’s heart sank more than a little, but then he added, “God, I hope Oz is alright.”

“So you weren’t able to find out _anything_?” Cordelia asked, greatly preferring this topic of conversation to the other.

“No,” said Xander. “It turns out, when you put someone in the hospital, the doctors won’t actually tell you how they’re doing.”

“I could try to get my mom to call his mom,” Cordelia suggested doubtfully.

“Nah,” said Xander, “I’ll probably just ask Willow, she’s starting back at Sunny-D tomorrow.”

“Oh,” said Cordelia, not sure what emotion to project, “how did that happen?” So much for Xander ever becoming cool, she thought, or ever giving her his undivided affection. Not that she wanted Willow to stay gone, exactly. Truth be told, she was the closest thing to a real friend Cordelia had left since she’d given up her old place in the social order to date Xander. She just wished Xander could understand how much she loved him, how much she’d lost, and for what? To be with a guy who was obsessed with two other girls?

Xander shrugged. “Just Sheila being Sheila,” he said. “Doug heard all about it from the ladies in the office while he was waiting to get grilled by Snyder. Apparently, she actually gave the guy over at Kent a lecture on the value of public education. He was still steamed when he called to tell them he was sending over her one page of a record.”

“Well I exhibit no surprise,” said Cordelia. At least she knew how she was supposed to feel about that kind of non-sense. “Sheila’s a complete freak over that political mumbo jumbo. My mom was on some kind of charitable committee with her at the hospital. They had to keep changing the time of the meetings to get her to stop coming.”

“Cause a social conscience has no place in charity work,” Xander laughed.

“Not if it means listening to a lecture every day about how much you suck for being ‘privileged.’” Cordelia noted sourly. “I mean honestly, if you give mass amounts of your very own cash to something, doesn’t that say you care a whole lot more than babbling psycho-moralizations at everyone?”

“Hey,” said Xander, “however it happened, I’m just happy to have my Willow back where she belongs.”

“Yeah,” said Cordelia with apparent sincerity, “right back where she belongs.”

 ****

“They seem... pretty scattered,” said Willow disappointedly, looking at the map of Sunnydale spread on the floor between them.

“Well,” said Amy, philosophically, “at least that means they haven’t built much strength up, I guess.”

“Maybe...” Willow mused worriedly, snapping a few shots with her new digital camera before the colored lights could burn through the paper and blink out. Sure enough, the huge, undifferentiated patch of white light that marked the Hellmouth itself soon flared up like a candle, just as Katherine’s margin notes warned that it might. Willow slipped on the Kevlar oven mitt lying next to her on the floor and beat the flames out of the whole map, leaving little burnt spots where all the demonic entities were located, pleased to note that none of them had burned all the way through the flattened cardboard box underneath.“...or maybe they’re out hunting,”she completed her thought. “We might have to try again in the daytime.”

“Well,” said Amy leaning in to point at the map, “there were quite a few purple ones scattered around the University. That could be a place to start anyway.” She leaned so close that her hair brushed against Willow arm, their faces inches apart.

Willow stood abruptly, pulling the memory card out of the camera. “I’d better get these loaded on the computer,” she said hurriedly, “then we can start analyzing them. There’s lots of good information here, even if it doesn’t help us find Angel.”

Amy sighed. She guessed, in a way, the fact that Willow was so uncomfortable around her was a good sign. It didn’t feel very good, but if Willow was having...feelings for her, even in her female form, then that should make it a little easier to convince her to be Willard more often. Shouldn’t it? And when Willard touched her, talked to her, smiled at her; comfortably or otherwise, that felt very good indeed.

‘What’s the matter with me?’ Amy thought, miserably. ‘How can I be in love with someone I made up?’ But she knew that wasn’t quite the truth. There was very little about Willard that was actually made up. He _was_ Willow, plus and minus one important chromosome. No one could have been more shocked than Amy was to find that this was enough to transform her oldest friend into her perfect mate. Now here she was, invoking the Goddess Thespia on behalf of oh-so-holier-than-thou Buffy, and planning on doing it again, just to have an excuse to spend a few more minutes a day with the girl who was the man she loved.

Diana, of course, would understand, and so would most of the other gods and goddesses she dealt with on a regular basis, but pretty soon she needed to do something really nice for Hecate, just to let her know there were still no other gods before her. A nice blood sacrifice should do it, maybe that fat black rat in the window at the pet shop in the mall. It was probably about time she introduced Willow to that side of things anyway. Amy had been reluctant to bring it up at first. So many people were spooked away from magic by the demands of the gods themselves, especially when it came to animal sacrifice. But she thought Willow had enough of a taste for the Craft now that she would find it hard to give up.

Actually, Amy was surprised at how far Willow had been able to go in the magical arena already without offering anything more to the gods than the spells themselves. She wondered if maybe the gods were cutting Willow a little slack on her behalf. She thought she’d better do a little thankful chanting before bed tonight, just in case. Either way, there was no denying that Willow was a talented witch, and apt to become very powerful. Which, Amy reasoned, just made Willard even more of a catch, if she could hang on to him.

Well, she would be seeing him again on Friday. Willow had promised that much, though she had strongly implied that it would be for the last time. Being back at Sunnydale High among her other so called friends was only likely to strengthen her resolve in that regard. Getting her transferred back had probably not been the smartest move she’d made today, but she knew it was what Willow wanted. She would simply have to make it count on Friday, Amy decided. She would have to give Willard a reason to change Willow’s mind. Men were not _so_ different from gods, after all. To get what you wanted from them, you just had to give them what they wanted from you. Which was, most often, some positive act, some undeniable proof, of love.

****

It was around 9:30 when Snyder got the call. “Are you sure, Bob?” he asked when the police Chief had finished telling him the situation.

“I’m afraid so,” he acknowledged. “It was the same conversation. Every word, every gesture. There were two witnesses this time, to most of it. I’m telling you, they’re back. We’re just lucky the girl wasn’t hurt.”

“Poltergeists,” said Snyder, contemptuously, “this is what happens when you blur the lines of authority between teachers and students.”

Maybe in _this_ town, Bob thought, but as usual, with Snyder, he kept any sedition against the Great State of Sunnydale to himself.

“Who were the witnesses?” Snyder asked, “Can they be trusted? Or manipulated?”

“You tell me,” said Bob. “I’ve got a George Capel, Janitor and a ... Rupert Giles, librarian.”

Snyder made a sound that might have been generously described as a sigh, but more accurately as a snarl. “Capel’s a moron,” he said dismissively, “probably already confused, you can tell him whatever you want, same as the kids. But Mr. Giles... well, he’s something else again. I’d better talk to him first thing in the morning, before he decides to have the Summers girl ‘look into it.’”

“Maybe you should shut down the school tomorrow and Friday,” Bob suggested. That’s what they did last couple of times. Things usually calm right down again after the dance.”

“Not a chance!” said Snyder bitterly. “I won’t have some student—or teacher for that matter—dictating how I run my school. The schedule is set and I intend to follow it. I will not tolerate disruptive behavior by students or faculty, dead or alive!”

 ****

Buffy didn’t have to worry about waking up at ten o’clock. She couldn’t have slept if she’d wanted to. She kept telling herself her father hadn’t meant the things he’d said, that he’d only been upset. But she didn’t believe it. He was gone. For good this time. There was a hole in her heart, like someone had put their fist through it. She thought of what Willow had said about her mother. That it was better to have it over. But she didn’t feel that way.

She got up, intending to get dressed and go kill something, or maybe go tell her troubles to Giles, but she heard her mother moving around hesitantly on the other side of her bedroom door. “Come in, mom” she said. “I’m up.”

Joyce came in holding two cups of warm tea and sat down on the edge of the bed. Buffy sat next to her, taking the cup she offered. Joyce smiled with sad affection, smoothing Buffy’s hair back from her face. “Your father will come around,” she said. “He just needs time.”

Buffy sighed. “What if he doesn’t?” she asked gloomily. She took a little sip of the tea, letting its warmth fill her comfortingly.

“If he doesn’t... then he doesn’t.” said Joyce. “ _I_ love you,” she reminded her daughter, “more than anything else in the world, and I’ll back you up, whatever you decide to do. You’re _father_ can go hang if it comes right down to it. I’m never going to be done with you, Buffy.” Buffy looked at her quizzically, “What?” said Joyce. “I went to high school once you know. We read Romeo and Juliet.”

Buffy smiled. “Tell me honestly. Is that not lamest story ever told?”

“I don’t remember thinking so at the time,” said Joyce thoughtfully, “but then, I’d never been in love.”

“Love sucks,” said Buffy with pouting conviction.

Joyce sighed, and put her arms around her daughter. Buffy curled up against her. “Sometimes,” said Joyce, “it really, really does.”

“And sometimes,” Buffy murmured against the warmth of her mom’s body, “it really, really doesn’t.”

Joyce was quiet for a moment. “You know,” she said, “we do have that spare bedroom. I don’t really use it as an office that much. I’m sure there’s nothing in there we couldn’t put down in the basement or take over to the Gallery.”

“Very cool,” said Buffy. “You’re a good mom.”

“I’m the best,” Joyce agreed.

“Is it as hard as it looks?” Buffy asked.

Joyce sighed. “Harder. The thing about being a mom, Buffy, is you have to be a grownup. Whether you’re ready or not, whether it’s convenient or not, 24-7, for the rest of your life. I have enormous faith in you Buffy, and I think if you really want to, you can do that, but you can’t do it sneaking in and out of windows at two am and lying to everyone about where you’ve been. You have to make a choice, Buffy. If you’re going to be a mom, you have to stop being a kid. You have to stop hiding your problems from the people who are trying to help you. You have to start sharing your burdens; whatever they are, with the people in your life that really care about you, including me.”

Buffy sighed, “You’re right, Mom,” she said, and it was true. Buffy needed her mother back in her life, now more than ever, if only she could find a door to let her in.

****

“♫Run and catch. ♪

     “♫Run and catch.♪

          “♫The lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.♪”

The sound of Drusilla’s singing echoed eerily through the ruined church.

Spike sat a long while staring at the massive cross above the altar. It was covered with a thick velvet cloth that Edwards had found in some cubby hole or other, but it was still there, staring back at him. There would be no hunt tonight. Everyone had had their fill of Karl. Nothing left to do now but wait.

Or dig. He knew from a planning point of view that if they were really going to hunt and kill a dozen or more virgins in the halls of Sunnydale High before the new moon, now was the time to be doing the hard work of connecting the main basement and other dark corners of the school to their network of tunnels below. Somehow though, with Dru sitting one room away, codling Angel’s sorry withered carcass, rocking it, singing to it, giving it her undivided affection, Spike couldn’t quite make himself get up and go bust his back on their behalf without even being asked.

God, how has his unlife come to this? Squatting in a church turned convalescent home for damaged vampires, bleeding the world’s least appetizing virgins for the chance to revive the hateful, smarmy, imperious prat that had made a life’s work out of bollixing up his entire existence. He wasn’t Drusilla’s mate any more, not even in an enlightened twentieth century everybody’s an equal bloody partner kind of way. He was her servant, her fool, her tool to be used to improve her life with Angel. More so than at any time since she’d sired him, Spike belonged to Drusilla; she didn’t belong to him. She belonged, as she always had and always would, to Angel, her sire, her lover, the god of her idolatry.

Well, he too had bowed before that idol in his time. God how he had looked up to him! Angel, the greatest of all vampires! Thus spake Drusilla, the goddess of his own salvation, and how could she be wrong? He had called him Sire, Master and every title of love belonging on the lips of an underling. And what had he ever gotten in return? A few pompous sodding hypocritical words of wisdom? A few pointers on how to survive as a creature of the night? Fucked up the ass was what he got, literally and figuratively. Well those days were bloody well over. Spike was as good a man, as good a monster, as good a master in his own house as Angel ever was or ever could be. Better. He ought to march right into that room and pull Angel from Drusilla’s arms. He ought to grab him by his singed bald scalp and twist his puny neck until his head popped off!

And then what? Drusilla would never love him after that, so what would be the point of anything? God, she would never be his. He would always be hers. He didn’t need any sodding Gypsy soul to curse him. Love was his curse. Love was the enemy of happiness.

Well, if he couldn’t take care of Angel, the least he could do was get rid of that meddling Slayer. It was this latest obsession of Angel’s that had brought them all to this low estate. Well, no more. She would be dead and in the ground by the time her dearest love was in any condition to come looking for her again. He had promised once to kill her for Dru, and he was going to keep his promise, then they’d see who was man of the house after all.

Spike grinned, picking up a pick and shovel. He knew just how he was going to do it, too. He wouldn’t have to seek her out. She would come to him. The best part was, for the time being, all he had to do was carry on with his original plans, to do just what Drusilla had asked. “Oy,” he said, walking into one of the side chambers, kicking Edwards in the head where he lay with his blighted black bitch in his arms. “You lot!” addressing the blond vampettes as well. “Get up off your asses. Time to dig.”

 


	10. Damage Contol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Harmony positions herself for a desperate bid to outflank Cordelia in the popularity wars and Snyder prepares to defend his territory against Spike, Giles fights a losing battle with his conscience even as he seeks the means of contacting Jenny. Buffy must cope with the fact that love may not be hers to win or chose, while others at Sunnydale High find themselves dancing with disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II: What We Make

Giles was awakened by the sound of someone entering the library. Sunlight streaming in the windows found his face lying in the midst of an open book upon a pile of other books of similar subject matter.“Oh, hello, Owen,” he murmured, glad to see the friendly, familiar face of one of his few regular readers.

“Hey, Mr. Giles,” Owen said, grinning shyly, the way he did whenever he was about to have a conversation longer than three words. Then a look of concern passed over his face. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Oh, erm... yes,” Giles lied, “I was just...”

Owen picked up one of the books and read the title. “Pondering weak and weary over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore?” he asked with a sort of sympathetic amusement.

Giles sighed. “Precisely,” he admitted sheepishly, not really expecting the boy to understand. Owen looked at once intrigued and uncomfortable. He didn’t know anything about Mr. Giles’ mystical background, but he knew, or thought he knew what had happened to Jenny Calendar.“Did you...erm... want something?” Giles asked finally.

“Oh, yeah,” said Owen, seeming relieved for the change in topic. “I brought back that John Donne book. I read it through a dozen times while you were gone, couldn’t put it down. I want to read everything he’s ever written, and the rest of the metaphysical poets too! I think I could happily spend the rest of my life doing nothing but reading metaphysical poetry!”

Giles smiled. “Had we but world enough, and time,” he agreed sadly.

“Can I ask you something?” said Owen seriously, sitting down at the table next to him.

“Of course,” said Giles. He could count on one hand the number of times a student, other than those who knew him as Buffy’s Watcher, had come to him for advice that couldn’t be found in a card catalog. He felt a sudden need to feel like an honest, helpful faculty member with a contribution to make to the education of the Sunnydale student body.

“Are women really interested in intellectual men?” the boy asked earnestly, “I mean, not in high school, obviously, but in real life?”

Giles sighed, He wasn’t sure this was really the type of wisdom he ought to be imparting. “Well... it depends on the woman really,”he assayed at any rate.

Owen sighed too. “So that means no, basically?”

Giles gave a small shrug, “I wouldn’t say that. Intellectual men are interesting to intelligent women, and I would say vice versa.”

“The thing is...” Owen went on, “I’ve only ever really been interested in this one girl... and, I mean I guess she’s smart and everything, but she’s... kind of wild? Which is sort of what I like about her, she’s like this... force of nature! But obviously she thinks I’m boring. We went out once last year, and I bet she hasn’t said ten words to me since.”

Giles sighed more deeply. God must really hate him for something. “I’m not really sure I’m the right person to ask about this,” he said.

“The thing is,” Owen went on, exactly as if he had met with some form of encouragement, “I know she’s a reader. She’s probably the only person who comes in here more than I do.”

“Buffy,” said Giles, since it was entirely clear that they both knew of whom Owen spoke, “is...Buffy. I don’t think advice about women in general would translate to Buffy, or vice versa.”

“Maybe I should try asking her out again,” Owen mused.

Giles wondered if he’d been a mass murderer in a past life. Of course, he realized, for certain reasonable given values of ‘mass’ and ‘murder’ an argument could be made for the title in this life. “I don’t... really feel... comfortable with this conversation,” he said aloud.

Owen looked stung. “Okay. Sorry... I’ll just go look at those... poetry books, I guess.”

“Listen,” said Giles, taking pity on the boy, “You’ll... hit your stride eventually. If Buffy never gives you the time of day, someone else will, and you’ll be just as glad.”

“Do you really think so?” Owen asked hopefully.

“So all experience suggests.” Giles assured him with a small, benign smile.

“So what should I do in the meantime?” Owen asked.

“Well... I’ve always found William Blake to be good for a little... philosophical perspective,” the older man suggested.

“ ‘Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desire...’” Owen recited, with entirely too much conviction. “Thanks!” he said brightening, “you’ve been a really big help.”

“I... erm... hope so,” murmured Giles dubiously, as Owen got up and headed for the door without any poetry books at all.

****

“ _What do you mean, let you go?” Angel demanded, “Where are you going?” “Sacramento,” Drusilla answered sadly, “to look at burial masks.”_

“ _Then why do you need a gun?!” Angel demanded._

_“Don’t worry,” Drusilla assured him, “I was too much of a coward to use it. Don’t worry about... what happens to me. You...deserve better.”_

“ _No,” said Angel, putting the gun to his own temple, “I killed you!” slowly applying pressure to the trigger. “I don’t deserve anything!”_

The shot woke Buffy with a scream on her lips. Unless it was the alarm clock, again. Either way Joyce came running. She bustled into the room, face lined with concern, as if she actually expected to find a monster coming out of the closet. Or in through the window, Buffy realized, possible by way of a rope ladder. “What is it?” she asked, finding Buffy still in bed.

“Nightmare,” Buffy explained, still shaking a little, “vivid”.

Joyce nodded knowingly. “That’s another symptom,” she opined. If so, Buffy thought, then she must have been pregnant for the last two years.“Get dressed,” Joyce said. “I’ll go make us some breakfast. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Thanks, Mom,” said Buffy, wishing for the millionth time that she could tell her mother why she had no reason to fear that Angel would ever return to this house. When her mother was gone, she opened her bedside drawer again and pulled out the familiar ring, still on its chain. Sighing, she tossed it back in the drawer and got dressed in pleated pants and a turtle neck.

“You look nice,” Joyce commented, handing her a plate with half an omelet and a slice of whole wheat toast.

“Is that _so_ unprecedented?” Buffy teased, sticking her fork into the omelet experimentally. “Mom, there’s spinach in this... and tomatoes... in an omelet.”

“There’s cheese in it,” said Joyce innocently. Buffy gave her a look. “Well, you know, it’s important to eat right when you’re pregnant, Buffy.”

“Mom,”Buffy said, “Using breakfast as punishment is evil.”

“Just wait,” said Joyce cheerfully.

She ate the eggs.

****

“What do you mean he’s not here?” Snyder demanded. He looked at his watch. He needed to talk to that damned librarian half an hour ago.

“Just what I said,” Ms. Barton replied, “Coach Marin isn’t here; he didn’t call in. First period starts in ten minutes, and I have to find someone to cover a ninth grade gym class, and I can’t do it because I have to cover Computer Science.”

“Did you try the pool complex?” Snyder pressed. “You know how obsessed he is with the swim team.”

“I’ve looked everywhere,” she insisted. “I even tried Ruth’s office. He’s always ‘consulting’ with her first thing in the morning.”

“Well, has she seen him?” Snyder wanted to know.

Ms. Barton shrugged. “She wasn’t there. The place was locked up.” She paused for a moment, then looked pleasantly scandalized. “You don’t suppose they finally ran away together?” she suggested, a twinkle in her eye.

“I’d be shocked,” said Snyder sourly. “No... something strange is going on here.”

Ms. Barton sighed. “Isn’t that our school motto?” she asked.

Snyder favored her with a withering look. “You cover the gym class,” he told her. “I’ll take the computer lab. I need to deal with Rosenberg anyway.”

****

When Buffy got to school, her only thought was to get to the library and see Giles as soon as possible. She was ready to find out what was causing these dreams so she could be done having them. The problem was, she didn’t have much time. The first bell had already rung for first period, and she could only be a couple of minutes late without getting detention, which had to be reported to the Court.

Just inside the front door, she was intercepted, literally, by Owen Thurman. He lumbered into her path and stood there smiling shyly, ignoring her obvious desire for him to be anywhere else. She wondered for the millionth time how someone so smart and good-looking could be such a complete idiot.

“Excuse me,” she said apologetically, stepping around him, as nearly sprinting away as was possible in the crowded hallway.

Long-legged Owen loped alongside her at a leisurely pace. “I’ll walk with you,” he offered, doing exactly that.

“Suit yourself,” said Buffy dryly. He did.

“So...” he said when they were close enough to the library for Buffy see the prospect of escape with her grasp. “Are you planning to go to that dance tomorrow night?” He stopped and stood with his back to the library door.

“The one where the _girls_ ask the _boys_?” she asked pointedly.

“That’s the one,” he acknowledged, oafishly embarrassed. God, had she once actually thought of this... _boy_ as alluringly broody and mysterious? On the plus side, if he was trying to ask her out, he probably didn’t know she was carrying Giles’ love child. ...Then again, there was no telling what, in Owen’s mind, might qualify as a turn on.

“Can’t,” she said matter-of-factly, “I turn into a pumpkin at six o’clock. Bail conditions,” she explained in response to his puzzled look.

“Yeah,” he said, looking entirely too pleased to be chatting up a girl with pending felony charges, “I kind of heard about that, but I wasn’t sure... what really went on.”

“We walked down town at two a.m. and picked a fight in a bar,” said Buffy, with maybe a little more bite than the situation called for. She was beginning to be annoyed by his inability to take eleven months of pointed silence as a hint.

Owen looked dejected. The second bell rang, the okay-technically-I-should-be-there-already bell. “Okay,” he said, heading off down the hallway, “I guess I’ll... see you around.”

“Yes,” said Buffy, “I’m sure you will.”

 ****

Sure enough, Snyder found the Rosenberg girl sitting in the back of the computer lab, staring at her screen, avoiding the eyes of the other students, who were whispering behind their hands, some even talking openly, as they filed into the leaderless, ungoverned classroom.

“Alright,” he said, moving to the chalk board, “take you seats.” The room got quiet. “As you all know, the lab assistant for this classroom, Mr. Osborne, has been filling in while your regular teacher is... deceased. Due to certain, unfortunate circumstances...” he added, giving Willow an icy, pointed look, “Mr. Osborne will not be able to join us for the rest of the semester, so I will be your instructor until such time as a qualified substitute can be found.

“Ms. Calendar’s former assistant, Miss Rosenberg, will be returning to this class in that capacity. In all matters involving grades and discipline, you will look to me for instruction. If you have any questions about ‘computers’,” he said, with the contemptuous air of someone who refused to believe in the importance of such things, “you may ask Miss Rosenberg. Now, open your work books to wherever you were at and do whatever you were doing. Miss Rosenberg, please step outside with me for a moment, we need to have a talk.”

She looked up at him, miserable, near panic. He smiled and opened the door for her. At least she was in the right frame of mind for what he had to say. “Okay, Rosenberg,” he said harshly, as soon as the door was shut, “let’s get everything straight out in the open. I don’t like disruptions in my school.”

“Eh,” Willow managed to squeak. She was sure their conversation could be heard inside the classroom. She was pretty sure it was meant to be.

“I’ll do the talking!” Snyder barked. “You’re a trouble maker, Rosenberg. You come from a long line of trouble makers. You’re a consorter with trouble makers. This school was better off when you were gone. And now, thanks to you, I find myself without a warm body to cover this class. Two weeks ago, I’d have asked you to do it, but now you’ve so disgraced yourself in the eyes of your fellow students that they wouldn’t recognize any authority in you if I was crazy enough to give you any.

“Now, I’m giving you an opportunity to complete this course, as my assistant, first and fourth periods, just as it’s set on your schedule. But if you step out of line, just once, on or off campus, with or without the help of your good friend Miss Summers, you will receive an F in this course. Not an ‘incomplete’, an F, and you will be suspended from this school, which will result in a revocation of your bond with the Juvenile Court. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes?” Willow squeaked, not quite managing an affirmative tone.

“Well,” said Snyder, smiling a little less unpleasantly, “I’m glad we understand each other. Now, let’s get in there and teach those idiots how to use a computer.”

 ****

“Can anyone tell me, how restrictions on child labor impacted the jobless rate in the U.S. in the 1930s?” Mr. Miller asked.

 _Grace gave James a miserable, longing look_ , “ _How are you enjoying that book I loaned you? The Hemingway?”_

“Miss Summers? Ahem. Miss Summers?”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry,” Buffy murmured, “what was the question?”

“Child labor, Miss Summers?”

“Well... I’m against it,” Buffy said with a nervous half-smile.

“... parent’s perspective...” someone on the other side of the room muttered, amidst a general tittering.

“Its effect on the labor market, Miss Summers,” Mr. Miller insisted, much tenser than his usual self today, as everyone was.

“Well there was a market... as always... for labor... so if there were no children laboring... then there must have been more jobs for grownups to labor...at, which would give them more market power...”

“Thus driving wages...?” Miller prompted.

“Up?” Buffy guessed, making a pained face.

“Careful,” said Tiffany in a loud stage whisper, choosing to be clearly heard this time, “she’s gonna boot again.”Buffy glared at her. Tiffany shot her a mean smile.

“Yes,” said Mr. Miller, “the effect should have been to drive wages up. Ms. Maitland!” he said, turning his attention to Tiffany, “can you tell me what factors if any mitigated this tendency of wages to rise in the face of child labor restrictions?”

Buffy looked back at her desk, cheeks burning. She guessed the ex-Cordette-set hadn’t gotten bored with discussing her business after all.

“Uuuummmm...” said Tiffany nervously, drawing well deserved laughs and whispers of her own. Then she began to choke and to retch. Mr. Miller looked at her crossly for a moment, thinking she was taking her little joke about Buffy a step farther. He was about to admonish her when something in her bulging, desperate eyes stopped his tongue. As Tiffany doubled, over in pain, leaning heavily on the desk in front of her for support as a huge snake began to emerge from her mouth. The cheerleader sitting there screamed and jumped on top of the desk, knocking it and both girls to the floor. The room was filled with the shrieking of terrified students and a shout of alarm from Mr. Miller. Even Buffy was taken aback by the horrible sight of Tiffany writhing and retching on the floor as the massive serpent wriggled from within her.

After only a moment’s hesitation, the Slayer got her wits about her. Tiffany was turning blue, in real danger of choking to death. Buffy stomped on the snakes head and jerked it’s midsection as hard as she could until at last it’s tail popped free and Tiffany lay there, gasping. Buffy twisted the body of the snake, snapping its neck.

Only it didn’t snap, because there wasn’t a neck, because it wasn’t a snake. The thing in her hands had become a wet, rumpled note on pink paper in curvy, purple script: Look at her! She totally is! I told you so!She stood, letting it fall to the floor.

Some of the other students were helping Tiffany and the other girl to their feet. Buffy slunk to her desk, feeling like the world’s biggest freak. God! If Amy had just kept her big mouth shut, she probably could have made it through finials before anyone even found out. As it was, she might as well be wearing a sign: WARNING, TEEN MOM! DANGER OF CONTAMINATION!Mr. Miller instructed everyone to sit and read the next chapter for the rest of the period, while he sat, ash faced, at his desk trying to forget that anything had happened.

As soon as the bell rang, Buffy made a break for the library. She had to talk to Giles about sorting out this ghost business, or whatever it was, before someone got really, really killed. “Hello,” said Giles in a tired, oddly sad way, looking up from one of his books.

“Hey,” Buffy said, smiling nervously. Sneaking a quick look around, she leaned down and tried to kiss him on the lips. He turned his head away, fussing with some papers. “Hey,” she said again, unpleasantly puzzled this time, “what gives?”

“This... isn’t the place,” said Giles tensely.

“Well I wasn’t going to _do_ anything... much,” Buffy pouted. He gave her a stern look, which shouldn’t have been sexy, but was. Buffy sighed. “I actually came to talk about ghost stuff.” She said.

“Oh,” said Giles, gravely, “yes we need to talk about that. There was another... reenactment last night. A boy and his girlfriend, just like Oz and Willow, including the words from your dream. There’s no doubt we’re dealing with a poltergeist, and it’s intensifying.”

“It’s getting way, way out of hand,” Buffy agreed. “Not just the gun thing either. Tiffany Maitland just almost choked to death on a snake that she hacked up.”

“My God!” Giles gasped.

“Yeah,” said Buffy, “but you haven’t even heard the weirdest part. So I grab the snake and pull it loose, right, but then, it turns out, even though it was just a huge snake, I mean HUGE, suddenly, it turns into a tiny little piece of paper with a note on it!” She hesitated. “The thing is, I’m pretty sure the note was about me being pregnant.”

Giles made a face. “Well...” he mused, “if I were interpreting a dream, I would say that makes a fair bit of sense. Snakes, you see, with their hissing and slithering about are a fairly common symbol for rumors and secrets....”

“Yeah,” Buffy pointed out, “but I was awake for this, and the whole class saw it. At the time anyway. The snake, not the note.”

“Yes, but you see,” he said, warming to his lecture, “these... manifestations are meant as a form of symbolic communication, so the same rules of interpretation are likely enough to apply. In all probability the note was a note before it was a snake. She would have... reinterpreted it as a snake, in order to make the point to us that it was...painful to her...dangerous.”

“She?” Buffy asked, “We have a ghost suspect?”

There was the face again. “I’m afraid it’s rather obvious, Buffy.” He said in the manner of one apologizing for being right when he wishes to be wrong, “It’s Jenny. She’s... trapped here...because of us.”

Buffy shook her head. “I’m not buying,” she said. “I know she made some... mistakes in life, but this... I mean Tiffany nearly died just now; Oz is in the hospital. Miss Calendar wasn’t really a vengeful type of person, career history notwithstanding. And the gun thing? That doesn’t fit at all.”

“Don’t you see?” Giles argued. “The gun is a symbol for something else, just as the snake is. It’s about power, blame, sex, death itself.” His eyes were actually shining.

‘Great,’ Buffy thought, ‘what a wonderful time for Giles to start losing his mind over Jenny again.’ “Whoever it is,” she said diplomatically, “we had better make contact soon. All of my visions have been totally focused on the Sadie Hawkins Dance, which is tomorrow night. I have a feeling things are only going to get scarier between now and then. I’m gonna get to English class; see if I can do a little damage control with Xander and Willow. Let’s face it; we could use a few friends right now.”

“Yes... good luck with that,” said Giles, a decidedly skeptical note to his otherwise distracted voice, turning his attention back to his books. Ignoring this less than encouraging response, Buffy hurried out the door, running smack into Snyder in the hallway.

“Watch it, Summers!” he barked, already in a bad mood. Buffy smiled apologetically and hurried away. She had a feeling that Giles was in for it, one way or another. She just hoped it wasn’t because of her.

God how Snyder hated entering this place! The library, crammed as it was with all its familiar unholy assortment of materials approved by his predecessors, was a constant reminder of how little control he actually had over what went on at Sunnydale High, especially in the hearts and minds of the student population. He had fantasies of bonfires filled with books on sex and drugs and dark demonic rituals, but there were enough do-gooders crawling all over this place trying to ‘fight evil’ without adding the ACLU to the list. Today, however, he had urgent business that could not be avoided. There he was, the devil himself, the librarian, absorbed in one of his books, urgently making notes, muttering to himself, infuriatingly unaware that his superior had entered the room. Snyder walked up and stood behind him, close enough to read over his shoulder. The man was actually making notes on contacting the dead! “Mr. Giles,” Snyder said quietly.

The librarian jumped as if startled by a thunder clap but recovered quickly.“Yes?” he said, in a tone of polite attention, half turning in his chair to face the principal and closing his book with his hand in it to keep his place.

“I want to discuss the incident you witnessed last night,” said Snyder briskly. “And one or two other things. Privately.”

“Well, let’s go into my office then, shall we,” said Mr. Giles, all genial courtesy. If he had any inkling that half the student body was accusing him of a sex crime, he certainly didn’t show it. Snyder let the librarian go before him into the office at the back of the library and sit down at his desk. He shut the door.

“I just wanted you to know,” Snyder told him authoritatively, “that the matter from last night has been handled. The students have been... disciplined and no further inquiry into their... misconduct is necessary or appropriate.”

“Duly noted,” said Mr. Giles with an infuriatingly benign little smile, the picture of innocence. “Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

Snyder had the galling feeling that he was being subtly out maneuvered in some way. “Buffy Summers,” he said ponderously, letting the name hang in the air.

“Yes?” said Mr. Giles, levelly, pleasantly, without any discernible hint of defensiveness. “What about her?”

“It occurs to me that, for someone who’s never actually been seen reading a book that wasn’t assigned to her, she spends an awful lot of time in the library.”

Finally he’d put a strain in the Englishman’s pleasant demeanor. “If you’re suggesting,” Mr. Giles began with excessive dignity, “that there is anything... improper... occurring between...Ms. Summers and myself—”

“Ha!” Snyder scoffed contemptuously. “Not even if you begged in all five languages.”

“Then why are you here, if I may ask?” His voice was such a balance of honey and acid that you could have glazed a ham with it.

“Rumors, insinuations,” Snyder orated, “however unjustified, can damage the reputation of an entire school. In a situation like this, it’s best not to give the student body fuel for speculation.”

“Well what, exactly, do you suggest I do about it?” Mr. Giles asked, letting his annoyance show a little more bluntly.

“I suggest,” said Snyder coolly, “that you encourage Miss Summers to spend her time elsewhere.”

“I can’t ban a student from the library,” he pointed out incredulously.

“That may be true,” Snyder conceded, “but there is a difference between checking out a book once in a while and sitting up here ‘til all hours of the night... gleaning wisdom at your feet. And if you need any incentive, just remember, there are thirty-five certified faculty members on this campus and every single one of us is a mandated reporter. If one of the more gullible teachers starts listening to rumors and believing in miracles, you could have a lot of explaining to do. You must be living an awfully dull and exemplary life to be willing to open yourself up to that level of scrutiny just to make sure one student gets plenty of extra study time.”

“Duly noted,” Mr. Giles repeated stiffly, “will that be all.”

“For now,” Snyder said, “but I’ve got my eye on you, Mr. Giles, and I will do whatever I have to preserve order on this campus. There’s a line. Stay on your side of it. _That_ is all.”

Giles watched him go, his blood boiling. He knew he should feel relieved to remain unsuspected of such a serious transgression in spite of the mounting evidence of his guilt, but it was one thing to be held above suspicion and quite another to be though beneath it, not man enough to be suspected, especially by that... lesser ape. More than that, he felt ashamed to be confronted once again with the fact that he was guilty of an offense of which any honorable man would have a right to resent being suspected, and he resented being made to feel ashamed.

Because he was an honorable man, for the most part, despite certain lapses. The problem was, he couldn’t quite work out what constituted an honorable course of action in his present circumstances. It was easy enough to say what he shouldn’t have done thirteen days ago, and to be sure, he was hard pressed to say what event of the last thirteen days made repeating the same actions any less wrong. But only yesterday he had as much as promised Buffy that they would be together. And there again, it was easy enough to say that the promise should not have been made. But it was. What honor could there be in breaking his word, in abandoning the girl he loved, the girl who was carrying his child? And yet, what right did he have to continue to accept her love under false pretenses?

Of course, all of this tended to suggest that the ‘right’ thing to do was to tell Buffy the whole truth about the Council and its demands of the Slayer. And there was another Gordian Knot all its own. Even starting from the assumption that his highest duty was to Buffy (despite any number of solemn vows to the contrary, not to mention the commitments and sacrifices others had made on his behalf) it hardly followed that he had the right to reveal secrets that would put her at odds with the Council and to rob her of the opportunity to ever be fully accepted and respected for the Slayer that she was. He thought of the two years he’d spent with Amanda, watching her become a withered, melting shadow of her former self. He couldn’t do that to Buffy. After the disgrace his actions would undoubtedly bring her to in the Council’s eyes, she would need some way to redeem herself.

It was all an endless loop. A hopeless tangle. It didn’t bear thinking about. At any rate, he had work to do. He opened the book in his hands and settled back to his task. He had to contact Jenny, to hear her out. Whatever happened with Buffy, he owed her that much.

 ****

Buffy found Xander loitering in the hallway outside Ms. Frank’s room. “Hey,” she said miserably, trying to force a winning smile.

“Hey,” he said, by way of apology.

“Have you seen Willow yet?” Buffy asked.

“No,” said Xander worriedly, “but I’ve been hearing the news about Oz, and it’s not good. I smashed in half his rib cage. He has a hole in his lung... God Buffy, what if she never forgives me?”

“I forgive you,” said Willow, coming up behind them, reaching for both of her best friends’ hands. Miserable smiles were exchanged all round. She sighed. “The past two weeks have been... the worst of my entire life, and I know they haven’t been great for you guys either. But I don’t want us to fight each other. You guys are my best friends. Nothing is ever gonna change that, okay?”

“Okay,” they acknowledged, letting traffic flow around them as they exchanged hugs and the girls sniffed back tears.

“Come on,” Buffy said, ushering them into the classroom a couple of minutes ahead of the second bell, while it was still possible to find three seats together near the back.

Buffy heard an intermittently audible commentary from across the half full classroom. “Oh...God...you...three of them...couple...” She let go of Willows hand and Xander followed suit. On the plus side, she thought, the crazier the rumors got, the less likely the crazy truth was to be believed.

“I’m sorry I... flipped out on you yesterday,” Xander said to Buffy when they were seated at the back corner table.

Buffy shrugged. “You were spun. I get it, I really do. Unfortunately, I think Giles sort of agrees with you. It’s like guilt-o-palooza, all guilt all the time. Right now he’s convinced that the ghost of Jenny Calendar is haunting the school because we did it like three hours after her murder.”

“You, know,” said Xander, “still not really wanting to hear about that stuff.”Willow’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t say anything.

“Fair enough,” Buffy agreed, “but we still have to figure out what’s really going on with this ghost thing. Whoever it is is totally wigged over the Sadie Hawkins Dance, which as far as I know means absolutely nothing to Miss Calendar. Plus, I keep getting these flashes, visions I guess, of a guy and a woman, no one I’ve seen in real life. I figure it has to be one of the two of them.”

“So it’s either a man’s ghost or a woman’s... and we’ve never seen them before,” Xander summarized. “Gosh, that narrows it down.”

“Well,” said Buffy, “it seemed like the guy was a student here, and the woman may have been a teacher. Plus, I think whatever happened happened in 1955.”

“How do you know?” Willow asked.

The second bell rang, bringing Ms. Frank and the rest of the students into the classroom. Buffy reduced her volume from an undertone to an actual whisper. “When, I was waiting in Snyder’s office yesterday, I got accosted by a yearbook. It like jumped off the shelf to get my attention, and when I touched it, I had a vision about the dance... sort of.”

“So Xander knows... about everything?” Willow asked, finally voicing what was on her mind. Buffy nodded.

Xander choked back a laugh, “You’re kidding, right? Wil, everyone knows.”

“Open your books to page 1127,” Ms. Frank said pointedly, walking up and down the aisles. “We’ll pick up from where we left off, Romeo and Juliet, Act III Scene V.”The three scoobies opened their books but kept whispering.

“They don’t know,” Buffy corrected him, lowering her voice to the edge of audibility. “They suspect, and we’re not confirming either part of it.”

“Wait,” Willow hissed, “what else aren’t we confirming?”

“Willow,” said Ms. Frank, beaming, “How good to have you back, can you start us off or will you need a day or two to catch up?”

“Oh I love this play!” Willow assured her, instantly switching gears. “I’ve read it forty-seven times.”

“Now how did I know you were going to say that?” Ms. Frank beamed. “Tell us what you see happening in this scene.”

“Well it’s almost two scenes,” Willow started to explain, “one between Romeo and Juliet and the other between Juliet and her parents. It’s... sort of a contrast? The lovers being parted again their will, having love torn away from them, and the parents... throwing love away... parting from Juliet when they don’t have to, because all they can see is themselves.”

“Hum,” said Ms. Frank noncommittally, “Nancy, what do you see?”

“Oh it’s definitely a unified scene Ms. Frank,” Nancy explained correctively, “It’s all about stripping away barriers to the self. Juliet represents the self. She pushes everyone away and finishes the scene alone because we are all ultimately alone.”

“But what does this scene say about love?” Ms. Frank asked, digging for something a little less abstract. “Who in this scene really loves Juliet; who does she really love?”

“Oh all of them love Juliet,” Nancy opined in a way that suggested this was the most obvious fact in the world, “They love her too much. They’re pulling her in three different directions all trying—”

“Um, excuse me?” said Buffy, not having the patience today to listen to Miss Nancy Know-it-all expound on the meaning of love out of her total lack of experience, “but her father just threatened to throw her out and let her starve to death unless she lets him pimp her like a whore. Last time I checked, that’s not how you love someone.”

“Then I take it you agree with Willow’s assessment?” Ms. Frank prompted.

“Well... I don’t know,” said Buffy, thinking about it for the first time, “I mean, I’m not saying Romeo doesn’t love her... exactly. It’s more like… he doesn’t do a very good job of it? I mean, he makes her life impossible to live, and then he just takes off.”

“So does anyone in this scene truly love Juliet? What about the nurse and her advice?”

Buffy thought about it for a minute, “It seems like practical advice...” she began, then with sudden realization, “but it’s not. She means well, but she doesn’t understand what she’s asking Juliet to do. She loves Romeo, more than loves him, she _is_ him almost. She belongs to him body and soul! 'Deny thy father and refuse thy name?' My God, if it were only that simple! But Juliet is a Montague and not a Capulet and it matters! The name matters, because it’s the truth! Because if you give your love, if you give _yourself_ , if it’s real, if you mean it, how can you take it back again and give it to someone else? You can’t! You can’t! It doesn’t work like that! It shouldn’t work like that!! She’s destroyed him!!! He’s left with nothing while she sits there in her father’s house going on with her stupid teenage life like nothing happened, and it’s not right! She doesn’t have the right to... abandon him!!!

Buffy was on her feet now, shouting, tears streaming down her face, her fist closed around something hanging from the chain around her neck. “She’s supposed to love him!! If you can just take it back and give it again...that’s not love!!! A person just doesn’t wake up one day and stop loving somebody!!!!! LOVE IS FOREVER!!!!!”

Buffy collapsed in the aisle, banging her head pretty solidly on the corner of a table. “My God, somebody get the nurse!” Ms. Frank shouted, running to her. Xander was there first, picking her up in his arms like a bridegroom or a fireman.

“She’s not here today,” another student pointed out. There was a dribble of blood down the front of Buffy’s sweater, but her head wasn’t bleeding. The blood came from her tight clinched fist, dripping down the broken chain that dangled from it.

“The library,” Willow instructed him authoritatively. “Giles has a first aid kit.”

Giles stood when they entered, dropping his book. “Dear God!” he exclaimed with horror and concern, rushing to take Buffy from Xander’s arms. For a tense fraction of a second it seemed as though the young man would not let her go, but in fact she was gently and smoothly transferred, as Willow hurriedly told him the outline of what had transpired.

She started to rouse as he sat down with her on the broad, carpeted steps leading up to the stacks. He looked into her eyes, just to make sure her pupils were evenly and appropriately dilated. God, those eyes! They were pulling him under. Something dropped to the floor with a tiny metallic tinkle. Giles leaned across Buffy’s semi-conscious body, to retrieve the fallen object. For a moment she was pressed close against him. Breathing filled him with the scent of her. ‘So you think you can tell heaven from hell?’ he thought wildly. ‘...and nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so...’ He felt light-headed. He felt drunk.

The tactile reality of the bloody ring sobered him a little. He recognized it as Angel’s, given in token of his love on the night of their fateful consummation not two months earlier. A broken chain dangled from it. Had she been wearing it all this time? He tried for one hot second to recall whether she had worn anything around her neck the night he had made love to her. He laughed contemptuously at himself. Jenny’s rose quartz burned cold against his throat.“Buffy,” he called gently, “are you alright?”

“Oh Gosh,” she muttered, moderately embarrassed, “did I pass out again? I think I’d better talk to Dr. Kim about that at my first appointment. The waking up is nice though,” she teased, snuggling against him. Giles cleared his throat meaningfully. Buffy sighed and sat up, sliding off his lap to sit next to him. She hoped it wasn’t obvious to anyone else how sorry his lap was to see her go.

“I think, perhaps,” he said, cleaning his glasses vigorously, “that this... incident was a bit more mystical than medical.”

Willows eyes widened just a little as she finally caught up to the second half of what ‘everybody’ at Sunnydale High apparently knew or suspected. She’d have thought she would have gotten a phone call, but then Buffy still thought Sheila was monitoring her communications. “Do you remember anything?” she asked gently, examining Buffy’s hand.

Buffy sighed, “I remember it.” She admitted as she allowed her tiny wound to be cleaned and bandaged. “I just can’t understand why I got so upset.... Oh my God, those last lines were from my dream! Those weren’t my thoughts and feelings at all,” But even as she said, this, it didn’t feel entirely true. She, Buffy Summers, had totally wigged about Juliet marrying Paris and the points of analogy that had gone through her head, silly as they seemed now, had definitely belonged to her own life.

She squeezed Giles hand. He smiled at her sadly. He was too old to play Paris, and she loved him too much. Of course, she reminded herself, she was a little long in the tooth for Juliet. ‘Long in the tooth’... what an odd expression. It made her think of vampires. ‘Dream on, school girl. Your boyfriend is dead’ ‘or ‘twere as good he were...’ And of course, she had already given herself a second time, more completely than the first. She was forever joined with Giles, Buffy realized with a shiver of amazement, had literally merged with him to form something new that was both and neither of them. It was a physical fact. Why did the idea seem so... otherworldly? “I think I’m still a little light headed,” she said.

“Yes, so am—” Giles stopped abruptly embarrassed.

“So... ghosts...” said Xander pointedly. “Who are they and what do they want?”

“Didn’t you tell them?” Giles asked, puzzled. He stood up, handing Buffy back her ring. She took it with a wilted, guilty kind of look and a feeling of falling back into reality.

“Yeah,” said Xander, “we heard that theory,” his voice was a little on the brittle side, “we’re uh, pretty unanimous in not buying it.”

“Think about it,” Willow pleaded, “The gun, the Sadie Hawkins Dance, 1955... It doesn’t add up.”

Giles sighed exhaustedly, picking up his book and walking towards his office, “I know, it’s... unpleasant to accept,” he said, at once maudlin and pedantic, “but Jenny is clearly very upset... very angry. These are all...symbols... stand-ins for...for....”

“Me,” mumbled Buffy, her mouth twitching with a ghost of a smile.

Giles gave her that terrible, longing look again, but he didn’t deny what he’d meant. “I’ll take care of... contacting Jenny,” he said. “You—all of you—had best stay out of the way. These paranormal phenomena are only likely to intensify, but hopefully they’ll become more localized around the point of communication.” With that, he walked into his office and closed the door. Willow shot an angry, exasperated look at his back. Couldn’t he see what all this wallowing in guilt and denial was doing to Buffy? Juliet and Paris might not be quite the fit, but she certainly deserved better than to play Ophelia to his Hamlet.

Xander sat down at the table, shaking his head. “Man,” he said “Who is that guy and what the Hell happened to Giles.”

“Me,” Buffy repeated miserably, “I happened.” She twirled the bloody ring on its bloody chain. “Destruct-o-girl strikes again.”

“Buffy, no,” Xander said firmly “he’s full of crap.”

Buffy shrugged. “He probably is,” she admitted. “It doesn’t matter. Whether Miss Calendar is really an angry spirit bent on punishing us or whether he’s just falling apart because he misses her, it’s still all just fallout from my love life.”

Willow walked over to a shelf and came back with a yearbook from 1955. She sat next to Buffy on the steps, “Come on,” she said, “help us identify some suspects.” Buffy tucked the ring and chain into her pocket and took a hold of the book. It opened in her hands to a full page photo of the woman from her dreams. It was captioned: ‘In Memoriam, Grace Newman, 1922-1955.’“Suspect, number one,” Willow muttered, pulling a sleek new laptop from her equally new leather book bag and typing in the name.

Xander came over and sat next to her, eyeing the new computer suspiciously. He tried to exchange a significant glance with Buffy, but her thoughts were too far away. If she was having any thoughts. She looked sort of bleakly catatonic.“Here we go,” said Willow in the kind of cheerfully encouraging tone you use when your spoon feeding a baby. “It says here that this teacher, Miss Newman, was shot to death by a student, a senior, James Stanley, on the night of the Sadie Hawkins Dance in 1955.”

Buffy perked up just a little, “That actually makes sense,” she said. “I saw them in my vision, he broke into the school. She seemed scared of him.”

“The rumor was they were having an affair and she tried to break it off.” Willow explained, sobering.

“Life and love at Hellmouth High,” said Xander sardonically.

“Love has nothing to do with this,” said Buffy bitterly. “He couldn’t have her, so he killed her, the sicko. That’s pretty much the opposite of love.”

“So what happened to him?” Xander asked.

“Oh,” said Willow sadly, “He shot himself too. Gosh, I feel so bad for them.”

“Feel bad for her,” Buffy advised, “He’s a murderer. He _should_ have to pay for what he did. The least he could have done was stick around to go to prison, the coward. I’m sure he could have found a nice big, burly weightlifter to ‘love’ him just as much as he loved her.”

“Wow,” said Xander, “the quality of mercy is not Buffy.”

Willow shot him a look. Buffy had enough people piling their emotional crap on her right now, dead and alive. “So whose ghost do you think it is?” she asked, trying to keep things moving past the emotional Black Hole that kept threatening to suck everybody in. “His or hers?”

“Based on how violent it is?” Buffy reasoned, “I’m going to say his.”

“We should talk to Amy,” Willow suggested. “She may know a way to contact the spirit and find out what he wants.”There are various degrees of cold silence. This was the soundless, soulless, absolute zero of deep space.“What?” said Willow.

“Wil,” said Xander, “who do you think told the entire school about you and Amy and Buffy and Giles?”

“No!” said Willow, horrified teetering on the precipice of rage, “Amy wouldn’t do that!”

“Willow,” said Buffy, “I’m telling you she did. She literally made an announcement in the middle of fifty kids at lunch yesterday, which was cryptic, but not very about Giles but not cryptic at all about the two of you or about me being pregnant.”

“Wait,” said Willow, not bothering to comment on the confirmation of Buffy’s pregnancy, which obviously wasn’t supposed to be news to her, “what about me and Amy?”

“Um... you know...” said Xander awkwardly.

“No,” said Willow puzzled, verging on rankled, “I don’t know.”

“Wil,” said Buffy, “she sort of made it clear that the two of you were... extremely close lately.”

“What?” said Willow incredulously, “No... I mean I kissed her, or Willard did... but I didn’t... we didn’t... Oh God, if this get’s back to Oz it’ll kill him.” They all knew that in his current condition this might not be much of an exaggeration. “God,” said Willow, “I was with her practically all last night... well not _all_ night but I mean ‘til late... and then, this morning... she didn’t say a word about any of this!”

“Well she wouldn’t, would she?” Xander pointed out.

“No,” Willow admitted miserably, “I guess not, but... why would she want people to think...”

“I’m not sure that part of the announcement was really intentional,” Buffy admitted, “she seemed... really upset about... something I was trying to say to her.”

“Oh God,” Willow squeaked near panic, “That’s even worse... she actually thinks... I mean she really thinks there’s a chance... Wait a sec, what did you say to her?”

Buffy looked down at her fingernail polish, “I told her to cool it with the whole magical sex change thing; I didn’t like what it was doing to you.”

“Buffy!” said Willow stung. Although she had had exactly the same thoughts about that spell, it was her place and not Buffy’s to have them.

“She’s right,” said Xander. “You guys are getting in way over your heads with this magic business. I mean, you’re messing with some pretty basic stuff here... and do we even _want_ to know where you got the money for _that_?” He said indicating her new computer.

“Oh my God,” said Willow, “is that what this is about? What makes you think Amy, or Willard for that matter, has anything to do with how I spend my money or where I get it, which by the way, is none of your business!”

“Wil,” said Buffy gently, “This isn’t like you. What kind of friends would we be if we let you do this to yourself without saying anything?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Mom,” said Willow with bitter sarcasm. “Maybe exactly the same kind of friends who don’t judge you for sleeping with a forty-year-old teacher. Or beating one of your friends half to death,” she added, bringing Xander within the compass of her ire. Buffy looked down at her hands in hurt angry silence. Xander stared at Willow in bitter disbelief. Willow wanted them to be not mad at her, but she couldn’t hold in her own hurt and anger. Anyway,” she said, “if you care so much about how I run my life, you could try talking to me about it, not Amy, because contrary to popular belief, she’s not my mom, or my keeper or my girlfriend, and she’s not in charge of deciding what is or isn’t good for me, any more than you are!”

“Say whatever you want,” said Xander bitterly, “but if your father knew what you were doing, stealing from him, from your mom, it would kill him all over again!”

“Xander!” said Buffy, shocked that he would put such a fine point on Willow’s wrong doing, which could do nothing but make her angrier.

“No,” said Willow, “let him speak. It’s obviously no more than you’ve already said behind my back. God, no wonder Amy lost it yesterday if you attacked her like this!”

There was a part of Buffy that thought Willow was right. The other part of her said, “So that gives her the right to tell the whole world what I only told _you_ because I thought you could keep a secret?”

“Wait a minute...” Willow said, “You think I told Amy about you and Giles?”

“How else is she gonna know?” Xander argued.

“I didn’t tell her,” Willow insisted, though she thought guiltily of their conversation in the girls’ room yesterday. “She ... had to know it was someone,” she pointed out, “She must have figured it out from the way you were fussing over him at the hospital.”

Buffy had to admit, this made sense, but she was still pretty bitter towards Amy and not too happy with Willow for defending her. Didn’t they realize Giles could go to prison over this? Not very likely maybe, but he could. And he could lose his job!She sighed. There was no point arguing any more about it. Amy had done what she had done and Willow was obviously not ready to break with her over it. And, she had to admit, Amy could, if she would, be a lot of help with this ghost business. “Look,” she said, “We’ve all done things lately that we maybe wouldn’t want to see on the 6:00 news...”

“Some of which have actually been on the 6:00 news,” Willow pointed out glumly.

“Anyway,” said Buffy, “Willow, you were right about one thing, which is that we shouldn’t be fighting each other. We...just have to deal with things from where we’re at. Agreed?” she added, pointedly to Xander.

“Agreed,” he said grudgingly.

“The thing is,” Willow said, “I don’t think Amy realizes what she’s done. I know she doesn’t really want to hurt you, Buffy. She just helped me do some spells for you last night and this morning.”

“What kind of spells?” asked Buffy skeptically.

“We made a map,” Willow said warming to the subject, “two maps actually, of where all the demons are in Sunnydale, as of last night and this morning. Color coded by type. I have them on my computer.”

“Would ghosts show up on that?” Xander asked, finally seeming to cool down a little.

Willow shook her head. “No, technically, ghosts aren’t demonic. Anyways, you can’t see any detail in the school itself, it’s too close to the Hellmouth.”

“Still,” Buffy admitted “that does sound useful, for future reference at least. But the damage is done on this whole rumor business.”

“Listen,” said Willow, “break is coming up in about ten minutes. I’ll find Amy and try to get her to tell people that she made the whole thing up.”

“It won’t matter,” Xander pointed out. “Eventually, they’ll be able to tell that Buffy’s pregnant, then everyone will pretty much figure it really was Giles after all.”

Buffy sighed. “Xander’s right. God! Maybe I really am being ridiculous to think I can do this without ruining Giles’ life. Maybe it really is... selfish.” She looked as miserable as any human being that had ever lived. “God, is it so much to ask, though? I mean, I know my life can’t be normal. I know it can’t be long or peaceful or basically happy, but does it have to be... so empty?” Her eyes were shining with tears. “Don’t I get anything outside of pain, sacrifice and death?”

“Of course you can,” said Willow resolutely, again taking in information she was supposed to already know, and some she probably wasn’t supposed to notice. “This is your choice Buffy, nobody else’s.”

“Giles is a grown man,” Xander agreed, “He can deal. So people suspect him. If you deny it, what are they gonna do? They can’t make him take a DNA test just because of a little high school gossip.”

“That’s probably true,” Buffy admitted, seeming to feel a tiny bit better.

The bell rang. Willow headed off to find Amy. “Where to, Buff?” Xander asked. Buffy shrugged. She was tempted to knock on Giles’ door, to try to talk to him. But that would probably just end in a fight. Buffy felt like fighting. She could feel him slipping away from her, sliding back into the mode of guilt and self-doubt that they’d both been in before his near death had crystallized everything they felt and made them bold enough to say so. And the fact that he was more or less right, that they _were_ guilty and the wisdom of their love was highly doubtful, only made her more miserable and more angry.

“Somewhere where they have chocolate,” she said gloomily. They headed for the candy machine in the upstairs lounge area near the bathrooms. Xander saw Cordelia across a crowed hallway and waved her over. She joined them, smiling.

‘God!’ Cordelia cursed inwardly, as pleasant greetings were exchanged. The first time she had seen Xander all day and, of course, he was with Buffy. Her rational mind pointed out that they had just gotten out of class together, and they had their next class together, and it was a given that Buffy must be having a pretty rough day already. She was the topic of practically everyone’s morning conversation, and not in a good way. Cordelia supposed it was ‘nice’ of Xander to spend his break with Buffy, to walk with her, talk with her, keep her company in her misery. She was a lucky girl, she reminded herself firmly, to be dating a guy who knew how to be a real friend, to be compassionate towards others. She just didn’t see why those others always had to be girls in general and Buffy and Willow in particular.“I’d ask, what’s up...” she said, acknowledging Buffy’s troubles with an appropriate look of sympathy.

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, “that’s kind of a known quantity as far as most people are concerned these days.”

“But we aren’t confirming or denying it,” Xander interjected.

“We’re not confirming; we are denying,” Buffy corrected him.

“Well, I should hope so!” Cordelia agreed. “It’s one thing to be weird and unpopular, but being pregnant is the seventh circle of high school hell.”

“It is that,” Buffy agreed, “Though on the plus side, I hear there’s a large amount of mandatory shopping involved.”

Cordelia gave Xander a sideways glace to see if he was hearing what she was hearing. If so it hadn’t seemed to register with him yet. Or he already knew about it. Getting pregnant was one thing, but staying pregnant was another whole subbasement of the social inferno. Her schemes for rehabilitating this social leper colony were growing less plausible by the day. “My God,” she said aloud, in a tone of cheerful, sympathetic disbelief, “have you ever got it bad!”

“Never had it any other way,” Buffy agreed with a wan smile.

“Hey,” said Xander, like he was kidding, “this time I wasn’t the one to say it.”

“Well, I think he’s perfect for you,” said Cordelia brightly. After all, she reasoned to herself, whatever flattering comparisons Xander might be able to make between himself and the vampires, werewolves and lesbian witches of Sunnyhell, surely he didn’t imagine he could compete with a covert agent of an international secret society who had not one but two jobs, a new red convertible and his own apartment complete with credit cards. Between that and the staying pregnant, surely he had to see that Buffy was well and truly taken.

“Alright,” said Buffy, feeding quarters into the snack machine and looking around to make sure there was no one close enough to eavesdrop. “This I have to hear.”

“Well... you have a lot in common,” Cordelia pointed out.

“Such as...” Buffy prompted skeptically.

“Well... for one thing... how about your very own Hellmouth!” she said with excessive cheerfulness.

“Wow, Cordy,” said Xander dryly, “way to look on the bright side. I wish I could think of comforting things to say like that.”

“No, seriously,” she insisted, more in response to the look Buffy was giving her, “You’re always saying how it’s like impossible to date and be the Slayer. How you can’t tell anyone who you really are and can’t hang around them at all anyway without putting them in danger, which I can totally attest from personal experience, by the way, just saying. So you ended up dating a vampire, which I can understand, really, but let’s face it; that has _not_ worked out...”

“I just know there’s a point you’re going to be coming to any minute,” said Buffy dryly as they all took up positions on the sofa.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Cordelia responded, “I mean clearly Giles has the same problem. Just look what happens to the one woman who’s ever paid him any attention? Bam, killed by vampires. But now the two of you together... problem solved. You don’t have to lie to each other about where you go and what you do at night. You don’t have worry about whoever you date getting jealous of all the time you’re forced to spend together. I mean okay, you’re still probably both going to be killed horribly by the never ending hordes of the forces of darkness, but that’s pretty much going to happen anyway. Now it can be like a family business.”

“Wow,” said Buffy. “Am I going crazy or did that actually make sense?”

“That first thing,” said Xander, still joking but not.

“Well, unfortunately,” Buffy told him, “The Watcher’s Council agrees with you. Apparently, it’s on like page one of the handbook I never got. He’s supposed to marry some nice respectable girl from a good Watcher family and have 2.3 children and I’m supposed to die a virgin sacrifice.”

“Yikes,” said Cordelia with genuine sympathy. “So Kendra’s not like that for nothing then?”

“Apparently not,” Buffy acknowledged. “God, sometimes I wish they’d fire me and just let her be the Slayer.”

“Yeah, but they’re not going to,” Xander pointed out.

“No,” Buffy agreed sighing, “I have a sacred destiny. But they might fire Giles, or reassign him to the other side of the planet.”

“Wait a minute,” said Cordelia, “I thought it was a destiny thing for him too.”

“Yeah,” said Buffy, “it is, but apparently, his destiny is a little more negotiable than mine since there’s like a hundred Watchers or something. To hear Giles tell it, Council politics is like _junior_ high complicated with everyone’s friend and enemies and frienemies getting all involved in each other’s business.”

“Yeah,” mused Cordelia, “but in like a bizarro world where stuffiness and academia are considered cool, so Giles should be like the popular jock guy who can do anything he wants, right?”

“Sadly no,” Buffy told her. “Apparently by Watcher standards he’s like this totally free-spirited black sheep character. Stop and marvel at that concept.”

“Says his pregnant seventeen-year-old girlfriend,” Xander pointed out.

“Which, I don’t even know if I am,” Buffy said miserably, “I mean you saw him just now, he was... not very boyfriendly.”

“Well, he’s not a boy,” Xander pointed out yet again. “But you should have seen the look on his face when he saw Angel’s ring.”

“He was mad,” Buffy agreed, though she hadn’t seen the look, only felt the closed-offness that followed it.

“Like, ‘jealous husband kills two in motel fire’ mad,” said Xander, “But only for a fraction of a second, and then he just kinda... shrugged it off.”

“Well,” said Cordelia, in the tone of one rendering an expert opinion, “that could go either way on the whole boyfriend/girlfriend issue.”

“Splainy?” said Xander.

“If a jealous guy gets suddenly un-mad,” Cordelia pontificated, “it’s because he’s suddenly un-jealous; which can only be for one of two possible reasons. Either he realizes the other guy isn’t a threat, or he’s decided to cut his losses.”

“Well,” said Buffy, “the other guy is... more or less dead.”

“Yeah,” said Cordelia, “but not so much more as less. At this point, all of us are kind of wondering why that is, by the way. And were you actually _wearing_ the ring?”

“Around my neck,” Buffy admitted. “God! I don’t even remember putting it on.”

“Look,” said Cordelia supportively, “I think I’ve gotten to know you pretty well over the last year or so and, while you’re no Cordelia Chase, you can be a pretty tough customer in the dating ring. You know as well as I do, when a guy can’t make up his mind, you just have to make it up for him.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” Buffy asked worriedly.

“Oh that’s easy,” said Cordelia, “you just have to kill Angel.”

****

The air was singing strange music when the butterflies started swooping around Drusilla’s head. She was a dragon. She had her claws out and would have pounced but she realized just in time that it was all part of their plan to lure her away from her nest, away from her precious egg. The blood raining from the sky was on fire. She could be patient.

“Don’t you want to eat something?” Spike asked, bleakly cajoling.

“Ate yesterday,” she said stubbornly.

“What about him?” he asked bitterly, indicating the infant in her arms, “he looks like he could use a pint.”

Drusilla hugged her precious baby tightly to her, shielding him from the shrieking and the rain of ice that showered from Spike’s sky into hers. “A’right,” she conceded. “Bring us a bottle.”

Spike jammed a stiletto into the temple of the boy hanging upside down from the covered cross, setting a wine glass on the altar to catch the fountain of life that issued forth. The boy twitched, but he was long past whimpering. “Serves you right you little bastard,” Spike muttered. “Almost cost us a good eight pints,” he explained, just as if anyone were listening. “I saved her just in the nick,” he added, looking up at the naked, exsanguinated body of a young girl with satisfaction and amusement. “Rescued from certain temptation.”

“Desire lives and dies inside my Angel’s eyes,” Drusilla replied. “That’s why blood stains red like poison burning in your direction.”

Spike sighed. “I know baby. I know.”

****

Snyder knelt diffidently on the mildew stained tile floor, next to the opening. “What’d I tell ya,” said Hawkins, the football coach, “right up through the foundation.”

They couldn’t do this, damn it. It was out of bounds! There were supposed to be agreements in place. There were supposed to be rules! The raid on Parent Teacher Night had been transgression enough, but this had all the earmarks of a permanent grab for territory. “There are too Goddamn many tunnels in this town,” the principal said sourly. Coach Hawkins knew he must be at his wits end to say something like that about his beloved Sunnydale.“Alright,” Snyder said decisively, getting to his feet. “I want a school wide announcement, immediately. Until further notice, this campus closes at four p.m. Everything locked up. Any student, teacher or employee caught on campus after that time will be immediately suspended and could face further discipline including termination or expulsion. Any practices, games, meets, tryouts that you can’t move up or move off campus will have to be canceled, am I making myself clear?”

“Loud and,” Hawkins agreed. “What about this dance on Friday? Should we cancel that too?”

“No!” Snyder snapped. “The dance is off campus, has been for years. These new security measures are about one thing and one thing only, and that’s what’s coming up out of that foundation at night.”

“What about the main basement?” Hawkins pointed out. “It’s dark all the time.”

“True,” said Snyder grudgingly, taking a moment to get over the fact that he hadn’t thought of it himself. “We need to dig a trench,” he concluded. “We’ll put in ventilation shafts with big open grates. Let’s get started on that today. They could be coming in there already. Vampires!” he spat, disgusted. “Well they’re not moving in here. Not on my watch!”

****

The door was open. She could see Giles in profile, sitting at his desk, muttering something in German and furiously making notes on a white legal type pad from the books open in front of him. To say he looked obsessed would be an understatement. Calling it an understatement was an understatement. He looked like a mad scientist in a silent horror movie.

“Giles,” said Willow firmly, “I need to talk to you for a second.”

“Can’t it wait?” he demanded, not looking up, still scribbling furiously, “I think I may be on the verge—”

“No, it can’t” said Willow, with a sharp edge to her voice now, pulling the book out of his hands and slamming it shut on the desk. Giles looked up at her at last, eyes burning manically. “We found out who the ghost is,” Willow tried to explain, pushing the 1955 yearbook across the desk at him. “It’s this guy, James Stanley—”

“You’re wrong,” said Giles stubbornly. “It’s Jenny. She needs me to... to...”

“To what?” Willow challenged bitingly, “Project all your guilt and resentment onto her and set her up as the agent of supernatural judgment against Buffy for leading you astray? You’re killing her with all this insanity, can’t you see that?!”

If possible, Giles looked even angrier, but at least his eyes were clear and focused on Willow when he said, “Whereas you and your new playmate haven’t caused her any pain at all.”

“Wow!” Willow mocked, “Way to deflect blame! That’ll help her almost as much as your belated wrestling with your conscience!”

“Willow,” Giles said coldly, warningly, “I think you’ve overstepped your bounds.”

“No.” said Willow just as coldly. “You have. The question is, what are you going to do about it? I mean, what exactly are your intentions toward Buffy?”

“My intentions?” he repeated incredulously. “You sound as if you ought to be holding a shotgun.”

“That’s not an answer,” Willow pointed out.

Giles put his face in his hands. “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted.

“Well, don’t rush to figure it out,” said Willow sarcastically. “Take your time. Have a good old-fashioned existential crisis; go back and forth a dozen more times! Maybe that way you can manage to sleep with her a few more times before you finally make up your mind. Who knows, enough repeated cycles of being used and rejected you might actually convince her that nothing _she_ chooses for herself can ever be right or real or good! Then maybe she’ll finally be ready to have that abortion after all, and you’ll be off the hook!

“In the meantime,” Willow added acidly into his shocked, horrified silence, “we still have to deal with what’s _actually_ going on with this ghost.”

 ****

“There you are,” said Harmony in her best imitation Cordelia Chase attitude, striding up to Devon’s van in the parking lot. “Why weren’t you in Biology class?” she demanded angrily. “I had to be bored all by myself,” she finished with an out of place sexy pout. Devon shook his head, not knowing which pose to respond to, not really in the mood for any of it. Dating Harmony was already like a bad cover of an old song called Cordelia. Why did she have to pull this crap?

“I went to see Oz,” he said pointedly. “Oz is my friend.”Was that bitterness? Since when did Devon do bitterness? He had like four moods: happy/sad/mad/scared and all for clear, simple reasons. He was more than an open book. He was an I-can-read book. But today she couldn’t understand what she was reading.

Harmony tried an apologetic smile, putting her arms around him. “I’m sorry baby...” she started to purr. Devon shrugged her off and turned away scowling. “What?!” she demanded, hurt and confused.

“I’m not stupid,” he said stolidly. “Tiffany told me what you wrote. It wasn’t funny.”

“Was it supposed to be?” She seemed honestly, innocently puzzled.

Devon shook his head. “Whatever, Harmony,” he said, “You’re mean!”

“So, does this mean we’re off again?” She demanded of his retreating back. She guessed it did. Glancing back towards the main courtyard, she caught a glimpse of Tiffany at the center of a cluster of girls—all lesser Cordettes and Cordette wannabes of the month before—all showing off their capacity for loud laughter and mean smiles. Harmony didn’t honestly know what was happening, but she knew who to blame, and that told her what to do about it.

She found them in the oh so predictable place where Xander and his she-geeks were always lounging themselves. “Cordelia!” she called loudly, with ten-thousand watts of cheerfulness. “I just wanted to congratulate you on your brilliant strategy for becoming cool and popular again, dating the hero of the hour. Of course, some people are saying you’re just making an even bigger fool of yourself, sticking with a guy who’s willing to fight to the death over another girl, but I think it’s... daring!”

“Thanks,” said Cordelia, mock sentimental, snuggling into Xander’s embrace, “Your opinion means so much to us, Harmony, especially now that you’re the most popular girl in school. Oh wait, you’re not.”

“Well we can’t all be as cool as you and your new best friend,” she said, smiling meanly at Buffy. “'Cause some of us actually know how to use a condom.”

“From many _long_ years of experience,” Cordelia rejoined. Buffy smiled approvingly. Xander chuckled. They weren’t the only ones.

“Well... anyway,” said Harmony, struggling to regain control of the conversation. “It’s nice of you to take Buffy under your wing, give her the benefit of _your_ experience.”

The temperature in the room dropped about fifty degrees. Cordelia rose, slowly to her feet, like smoke rising from a volcano. Her voice was like flint. “You do not want to play this game with me, Harmony.”

“Don’t I?” asked Harmony, mock innocent, taking a step towards her. “How do I know? _Sheep_ aren’t really that smart. Maybe I don’t know what I want.”

“I know everything about you, Harmony,” Cordelia said, back straight, eyes blazing, “Everything you’ve ever said. Everything you’ve ever _done_. When, where and who with. All the way back to preschool. But I still didn’t realize you were weak minded enough to let Amy Madison tell you what to think, or fool enough to want to cross me.”

Cordelia looked ready to fight a gristly bear, but Harmony wasn’t backing down. A respectable crowd had formed to watch the two legendary bitches glare at each other in tense, angry silence. The first bell rang for third period. For a moment, everyone ignored it. The moment passed without any further indication that mortal violence was imminent. One by one, students reluctantly headed off to class, looking back over their shoulders as they went, not wanting to miss any explosions.

“Come on,” said Xander, gently worried, laying a hand on his girlfriend’s elbow. “We’re going to be late for Chemistry.” Cordelia strode gracefully forward, forcing Harmony to step back out of her way. Xander and Buffy followed in her wake. Harmony watched them go, feeling defeated. She could have destroyed the last vestiges of Cordelia’s reputation for all time, yet she, not Cordelia, would have been the one left friendless. Well to hell with them. They would never be anything but outcasts, but Harmony still had a few moves left to make. As for Buffy and her gang of freaks and losers, they deserved a ‘friend’ like Cordelia Chase.

 


	11. My Own Personal Hellmouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationships are hell on the whole Sunnydale Crew. A School shooting temporarily shuts down Sunnydale High. Willow, Amy and Giles think they have found a magical solution, but Buffy has her doubts. Joyce gets an education in what Buffy's life is really all about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II: What We Make

The morning dragged on. Objectively, it was getting better. The gossip at Sunnydale High was diversifying. Opinions were diverging. Angel-the-killer was once again the leading contender for the title of father of Buffy’s possible baby. Who was or wasn’t screwing or pursuing the suddenly, scandalously interesting Willow Rosenberg was also a hot topic of conversation. ‘Xander Harris: hero or psycho?’ was the debate of the day. Whole new worlds of speculation were opened up by a school wide announcement that the campus would be closing at 4pm daily until further notice. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth among the ranks of every club and organization. Jocks demanded an explanation. Cheerleaders called for Snyder’s head. But the consensus among the Scooby set was that the principal had finally done something right. If an angry ghost was bent on making the student population actors in his sock puppet theater of romantic tragedy, why give him the uninterrupted opportunity? It also meant Giles would have to take a break from trying to commune with the spirit of Jenny Calendar.

Still, Buffy counted each one of the 105 minutes between morning break and lunch. Each felt like a lifetime. She had to see Giles. She had to let him know that she was still his. She had to hear him say that he was still hers. Angel’s ring burned in her pocket. She wanted to be rid of it and everything it stood for. By the end of fourth period, she knew just what to do. Fortunately, the computer lab was on her way to the library. Unfortunately, Willow was trapped inside with Principal Snyder. It would have to wait. Seeing Giles couldn’t.

Buffy peaked through the partly raised blinds on his office window. He was slumped at his desk, his head down, his face in his hands. Books and papers were scattered haphazardly around the clean swept space where his upper body rested. Some had been knocked to the floor. Her swollen heart hammering in her too tight chest, Buffy knocked gently at his door, waiting only a second to walk in uninvited. He looked up at her, his eyes dim and haunted.

Buffy closed the door and the window blinds. Giles started to object, but something in her eyes stopped him. She was here on serious business.“Please,” he said gently, with the smallest, saddest of smiles, “sit down. We need to talk.”

“I think I’ll stand,” said Buffy nervously, forcing a smile. She indicated his desk with a gesture, “research not going very well?”she asked, suddenly desperate to avoid what she’d really come to talk about. The regret she saw in his eyes made her afraid.

Giles hid his face in his hands again. “It’s not her,” he admitted bleakly. “Willow... filled me in on James and his... Miss Newman. It... fits... everything, perfectly.”

Buffy pulled a chair behind the desk and sat down next to him. “If it’s not her,” she pointed out gently, laying a hand on his shoulder, “that’s a good thing. It means she’s at peace.”

“I hope so,” he said, straightening so that his shoulder was beyond her easy reach. A small, brittle laugh escaped him. “Willow has Ms. Madison working on one of her _mother’s_ spells for communicating with the dead. With any luck, we should be able to find out what they want before Snyder locks us out this afternoon.”

Buffy’s hand found its own way to her pocket. “He wants forgiveness,” she mumbled.

“Yes,” said Giles, “I imagine they both do.”

Buffy cocked her head quizzically. “Why both?” she asked skeptically. “He shot her, remember.”

“Well it wasn’t exactly a random killing, was it?” he pointed out.

“No,” said Buffy bitterly, “It was worse. He loved her and he killed her! Now he wants our permission to move on and pretend that it’s okay. Well it’s not. He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven!”

Giles was taken aback by the ferocity of her judgment. “To forgive is an act of compassion,” he admonished. “It isn’t done because someone deserves it. It’s done because they need it.”

“Well then,” Buffy snarked, “I guess it was kind of short sighted of him to destroy the one person who could have given it to him.”

Giles’ sigh was at once sad and exasperated. “I think I... understand where this attitude is coming from,” he said, “but I wish for my sake, you were in a more forgiving frame of mind.”

Buffy tensed. “What, exactly, do I need to forgive you for?” she asked warily.

Giles forced himself to look into her heart melting eyes. He shook his head sadly at himself. “You know,” he said with bitter amusement, “it’s funny. I remember very clearly, a little over two weeks ago—a lifetime ago—giving you a very tiresome speech about responsibility, about not being a slave to your passions. I should have been talking to myself.”

“What are you saying to me?” she demanded, her eyes hardening.

“Buffy, I do love you. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, but I can’t... be with you. That’s not what you need from me, or from life.”

Buffy’s lip trembled, but her eyes remained hard.“Don’t you think maybe I’m the one who should decide that?” she challenged fiercely.

“No,” Giles said grimly, looking down at his own hands. “I don’t. As your Watcher, as a teacher even, I have responsibilities towards you that are not compatible with... a romantic relationship. It was wrong of me, selfish of me to put what I wanted, what I needed from you, ahead of my duty to do what’s best for you.”

“What’s best for me?” Buffy demanded, shedding a few hot angry tears. “You seriously think getting _dumped, abandoned_ with your _child_ , is what’s best for me?” Her voice came out in a sort of strangled, quiet scream. She could barely breathe.

“Buffy,I’m not going anywhere,” he tried to reassure her, “I’ll always be here for you, emotionally and financially—”

“ _Financially_?!” Buffy seethed, her voice dripping with rage and contempt. “You think I want _money_?”

“I only meant—” he began plaintively, reaching to lay a hand on her shoulder. In an instant she was on her feet, sending her chair crashing to the floor, kicking it out of her way. It exploded against the wall by the door. Rupert had to resist the impulse to duck under his desk. He got to his feet instead, but the look she gave him told him any hand he reached out in her direction he might never get back again.

“If you touch me, I’ll kill you,”she confirmed bitterly.

He hid his face in his hands again. “I’m sorry... I—”

“You said you _loved_ me!” Buffy wailed.

“I _do_ ,” he insisted miserably.

“Liar!” she sobbed. “If you loved me, you couldn’t do this to me.”

“Believe me,” said Giles plaintively, “I’ve thought this over and over—”

“Since yesterday?!” she demanded incredulously. Forgetting himself, Rupert took a step forward, reaching vaguely in her direction. Buffy held her hands in front of her face in a sort of blocking gesture that was at once defensive and dismissive. “Just... don’t,” she warned him, turning away. She fumbled with the doorknob for at least twenty seconds, sobbing harder than ever, blinded by tears and pain, wanting to be gone before he had the nerve to try to speak to her again, to try to _explain_ to her how ripping her heart out and stomping on it was the grown-up, responsible thing to do and she was just a dumb little girl not to see it.

The knob came off in her hand. She kicked the door open and ran out, leaving it hanging drunkenly on its bent hinges. It took her several seconds to realize that the explosion that still rang in her ears was more than the echo of the door or her heart breaking. As she ran in the direction of the shot, the gun fired a second time. Everyone was running now, clearing the building. Buffy forced her way against the tide, none too gently shoving students and teachers out of her way. Principal Snyder and the school security officer, among the few not running, stood at the door to the music room. “Break it down!” Snyder demanded, handing the officer an ax that he’d broken from its glass case near the fire extinguisher. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Buffy swept past the two men, felled the door with one expertly placed kick and rushed into the room. What she saw stopped her cold in her tracks. Her rage was snuffed out by a wave of cold horror. There on the floor in a spreading pool of blood, his face shattered, one cloudy eye staring sightlessly into the void, was the body of Owen Thurman.

Buffy sank to her knees. She felt lost, empty. Owen was a sweet, innocent kid. He was a special, interesting human being. He was someone she once thought she could have grown to love. That death had come for him so early, so unkindly, was somehow indefinably yet undeniably her fault. It was unfixable, yet she knew what she had to do about it. Buffy rose, wiping the tears from her eyes. She turned to find Giles standing in the doorway, looking as miserable and horrified as any human person ever had been. “Ms. Frank,” he said, with a sort of bleak wonder, “He shot her. She’s dead.”

“Come on,” the Slayer instructed him simply, all business now. Giles backed out of the doorway to let Buffy by and turned to follow her wherever she was leading.

“And just where do you two think you’re going?” Principal Snyder demanded.

“We have a date,” Buffy said sarcastically, “Come on, _Honey_ , or we’ll lose our reservations.”

“I don’t find that terribly amusing,” said Giles crossly.

“Sucks to be you then,” said Buffy coldly.

“The police are coming,” Snyder said, stating the obvious. “You have to give a statement, Summers. And _you_ , Mr. Giles, had best get back to work.”

“No one’s going back to work,” said a bald, stocky man in khakis and shirt sleeves with a huge shield pinned to his chest. It was Bob Roberts, the police chief. He strode up the hallway at the head of a dozen officers, stopping before the fatal door.“I gave you a chance,” he admonished Snyder openly. “I’m shutting this place down. No one steps foot on this campus until Monday morning unless I say so. Is that understood?”

“You can’t do this,” Snyder insisted bitterly. “The Mayor—”

“Says ‘hi’,” Bob interjected.

Snyder whitened. “You went over my head,” he accused the chief hotly.

‘Not hard to do,’ Buffy thought, but she held her tongue.

“Damn right,” said Bob. “Jackson, Faubus, Pulaski, take their statements and get them the hell out of here.”

Buffy and Giles were separated by several yards of hallway and made to recount what they had seen and heard. She finished first while he waited his turn behind the school security guard, who seemed to have at lot to say. She would have waited there for him, but it would have been suspicious. She would have gone looking for Willow and Amy, but she couldn’t afford to defy Chief Bob’s order to leave, which meant they were probably gone anyway. She headed for the parking lot. Giles was parked in the row nearest the building, reserved for faculty. In the half an hour since the first shot was fired, the lot had almost completely emptied. Only two other faculty cars were still there besides Giles’ and Snyder’s. There were a couple of cars left by student who’d probably been picked up by their parents.

Deciding it was worth the risk, Buffy sat down on the hood of Giles’ red convertible and waited for him. She tried not to think too much, or at least to think strategically, to focus on the Hellmouth. This ghost, whoever or whatever he had been in life, had gone too far. The time for touchy-feely communication was past. It was time to Slay, or otherwise kick ass in whatever way might be applicable to a being that was already dead and therefore had no actual ass to kick. She tried not to think, not to _feel_ ,about anything else. But Goddamn it what could Giles possibly be thinking!?! Surely he couldn’t _really believe_ those things that he had said. Could he? Either he actually thought, actually _believed_ that Buffy was a child, incapable of making a rational decision about who and what she wanted; or he really, truly didn’t love her and was too much of a coward to say so. Buffy sighed. She knew which one sounded more like Giles. But how could he love her if he didn’t know her, didn’t respect her any more than _that. And_ if he loved her _and_ thought she was incompetent, leaving her made even less sense, especially now.

Minutes passed. The sun beat down on the asphalt parking lot in a way that it had no right to do in March, even in Southern California. Buffy pulled off her sweater and threw it into the car. Sitting in her plain white tank top, the sun felt good on her bare arms. Why had she worn that sweater in the first place? A tiny but uncomfortable lump in her pocket suggested an answer that she didn’t want to believe. Maybe she _had_ given Giles reason to think that she didn’t know who or what she wanted. Cordelia had suggested as much. How was he supposed to react to her freaking out about Angel like some mixed up, love-sick school girl? How was he to know she really loved him, that she wasn’t just rebounding into the safe and sheltering arms of her surrogate father figure? Because he should just know, damn it, the same way she knew he was hers, even when he was freaking out about Jenny. Except that he wasn’t hers. Not anymore. He had made that pretty clear just now, hadn’t he? How did he expect _her_ to feel _about that_ , or didn’t he give a damn?

Buffy was pulled from these soul sickening thoughts by the sensation of being watched. Miss Tishler, her tenth grade social science teacher, was standing about five feet away at the door to her sensible sedan having a good old disappointed stare at what was sitting on the hood of Mr. Giles motorized cry for help. Buffy smiled thinly and gave her a reasonable facsimile of a friendly wave. She knew what Miss Tishler thought. It bothered her, but not as much as Giles thinking it.“Buffy,” Miss Tishler said, sadly gentle, pitying rather than scolding, “can I give you a ride home?”

“I’m fine where I’m at,” said Buffy coolly. Miss Tishler looked so sad, so _sorry_ , that Buffy wanted scream at her, to tell her it was none of her business, that she could manage her own love life, such as it was. “Look,” she said instead, “He’s just giving me a ride. Don’t believe everything you hear around this place.”Miss Tishler shook her head sadly and turned away. She got into her car and left. That was fine with Buffy. She could think whatever she wanted, somewhere else. As for Giles, if he thought he had to protect Buffy from herself, she would just have to show him otherwise. She would have to show him that she could make up her own mind even if she couldn’t make his mind up for him. She thought she knew how to do it too. If she was lucky, she might get to kill two birds with one stone, possibly even three, maybe more. God knew the other birds needed killing. But in the meantime, there were things to do, sacred duty kind of things, things she couldn’t let slide while she tried to resurrect her personal relationships. In the meantime, as always, there was the Hellmouth.

Giles arrived at last. At least he looked relieved rather than distressed to see that she had waited for him. “Alright,” he said meekly, getting behind the wheel, “what do you have in mind to do.”

“First of all,” Buffy explained as they pulled out of the parking lot, “we have to find Willow and Amy. We need our best brains working together. Find me a way to fight this thing.”

She was focused, determined, business like. Giles tried to follow her example. “Some type of binding spell perhaps,”He suggested, “Something to prevent this spirit from intruding upon the physical world.”

Buffy nodded, “So where would they go? They have to know we’ll want to reach them.”

“Willow’s home, I suppose,” said Giles. “Or possibly Amy’s if she has her mother’s books there.”

“Amy’s,” Buffy determined, “They know I’m not allowed at Willow’s.”

“Will that matter if her mother is at work?” Giles asked.

“Maybe not,” Buffy admitted, but she might have come home if she heard about the shooting, so might Amy’s dad for that matter.”

“Or your mother,” Giles pointed out. “Perhaps you’d better let her know you’re alive.”

Buffy sighed. “Alright, let’s go to your place and make some phone calls. We can pick up any books you need too.”

Giles nodded, pulling on to his own street. He’d been heading that way without thinking anyway. He drove around back of his building where the garages were and pulled in. Regret stabbed him like a stake through the heart. He didn’t know if he was saner or crazier than the last time he’d been here with Buffy, but he was sure as hell didn’t feel like the luckiest man on Earth. ‘Go back and forth a dozen more times,’ he scoffed silently at himself. Buffy hopped out and slammed her door with a discontented sigh. He looked at her in helpless, silent apology. She rolled her eyes and strode off around the building to his front door. He trailed after her, fumbling with his keys, the stupidest bastard that ever lived.

The light on his answering machine was blinking. He let Buffy handle it while he went upstairs to sort through a few books and artifacts that might be useful in dealing with a rogue spirit. The things that really would have done the most good were still in the library, but there was no going back there now.“No, Mom,” Buffy was arguing urgently when he came downstairs again. “There’s no reason to do that. I’m fine. ... Yes, I’m sure. ... Mom, if you close the Gallery every time someone dies in this town, we’ll starve to death. ... No, Mom, for once, it’s nothing to do with me. ... I thought I might go to the mall with Cordelia, do a little retail therapy. ... Yes, I promise, I’ll be home at 5:30. ... I love you too, Mom, honestly, try not to worry. ... That get’s funnier every time you say it, Mom. ... Okay, see you at home.”

Buffy hung up the phone.“Okay,” she said to Giles crisply, her professionalism apparently recovered, “We’ve got nearly five hours. We’re all meeting at Willow’s. Xander and Cordelia are coming too. Amy’s found something in her mom’s journals, an exorcism ritual. It was written up for a particular ghost, apparently. They want you to take a look at it and see if you think there’s a way to make it work for this one.”

“I suppose I can do that,” he agreed apprehensively. “Though, I have to admit, the idea of following Katherine’s lead into anything scares me a little. We’d better take a pretty careful look at exactly _how_ this ritual is meant to work.”

“Well, that’s why they pay you the big bucks,”said Buffy glibly. “You handle the whys and the hows. Dot your Is; cross your Ts. Then point me at this thing and stand back.”

 ****

“That was them,”Willow confirmed in response to Amy’s questioning look, “They’ll all be here in a few minutes.”

“Well then, we’d better get you ready,”Amy said, pulling a tiny pouch out of her purse and laying it next to her open spell book on the kitchen table. “Come stand in the circle.” She indicated the figure they had drawn in lipstick on the kitchen floor, a circle with a foreshortened cross beneath it and an arrow pointing up from one side at an angle, a unified symbol of male and female.

“Do we have to do this now?” Willow objected. “Can’t we just do it right before the ritual?”

“With all of them watching?” Amy questioned pointedly. “You know how they feel about this spell. Their negativity will get in the way. Then we won’t have the balance of sexual energies we need to do the ritual.”Willow shifted uncomfortably, looking down at her body. She thought her sexual energy was bound to be a little out of whack in any case if she kept ping-ponging back and forth between genders.

Sighing, gently exasperated, Amy came to her, walking right through the invisible barrier into her little bubble of personal space. Willow felt like she ought to take a step back, but she didn’t. Her heart was pounding. Her skin was hot. Amy lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. Her touch was electric, her gaze hypnotic. Without saying a word, she took Willow by both hands and led her into the sacred circle. Amy closed the little distance between them again. Her hair brushed against Willow’s cheek. Their breasts were millimeters apart. If Willow had dared to breathe they would have touched. Amy unfastened the two top buttons on Willow’s purple corduroy overalls, then slid her hands down to the rows of brass snaps that ran down each of her hips. She pressed her body against Willow’s as she pulled hard on both sides of the coarse garment. The snaps popped loose in rapid succession, like a short burst of quite, delicate machine guns Amy stepped back a few inches as the overalls fell to the floor. Able to breathe again, Willow stepped out of them, kicking off her shoes and socks at the same time. Quickly, she pulled her rainbow colored shirt over her head, not daring to let Amy do it for her.

Amy picked up her girlish things and laid them on a chair outside the circle. Willow stood there in her nylon bra and panties, feeling more than naked already. Having Amy even so far away was paradoxically a relief and a torment. Desire permeated Willow’s being, but now the space between her and the object of that desire was wide enough to let in a draft of resentment. Amy was cool as a cucumber with sunglasses. She knew exactly what she was doing. And then, like a wave rushing ashore, she returned. Resentment was swept away. The slightest tug of Amy’s hand was enough to uncross Willow’s defensive arms. Sliding her arms under Willow’s to reach her back, embracing her tightly, her face nestled against Willow’s neck, peering over her shoulder, Amy loosed the tiny hooks on Willow’s bra. One, two, three; pop, pop, pop. All of the tension was released and the garment hung loose. Amy pulled back from her embrace ever so slightly and began to slide into a kneeling position, running her hands down the length of Willows arms, pulling the bra straps with them, baring her breasts as Amy’s sweet face sank past them, too close and too far away.

Willow stood trembling as Amy knelt, fully clothed, on the floor before her. Smiling mischievously, Amy laid the bra aside. Her eyes were almost level with the place where Willow’s thighs met. She reached up and put her hands on Willows hips, hooking her fingers into the elastic sides of her panties and began sliding them down. Amy’s finger tips brushed Willow’s buttocks and the back of her thighs and calves while her palms slid smoothly down her hips and legs in a sustained caress. Willow whimpered helplessly. The source of her longing remaining painfully untouched, she lifted her feet one at a time and took the last agonizing step into nakedness. Amy rose and took her undergarments from the circle, laying them aside with the rest of her female garb. She returned with the leather pouch and sprinkled a pinch of its gritty contents around the circle. Standing outside the circle, she took up her book and began to read rhythmically through her incantations, mechanically at first, but with increasing passion as the power began to flow through her.

The air stirred. Willow felt a moment of panic, of dark nauseous dread like the drowning of a damned soul. It passed quickly, replaced by a physical sensation of intensity beyond pain or pleasure. Every organ, every tissue, every cell in her body was shifting, changing, becoming something other than itself. For a split second a white hot light eclipsed her consciousness. Willard stumbled to his knees and found himself looking up into eyes brimming with tender concern and melting desire. Amy took his hands and helped him gently to his feet. Their faces were inches apart. Helen of Troy was never so beautiful or so in love.

Taking her lovely face in his hands, he kissed her tenderly. She kissed him back. The kisses deepened,taking on a fierce intensity. He pulled her into his arms, holding her against his naked body. She pressed her hips against him, denim against skin. His skin sang. The thing with a mind of its own made up its mind. Amy gave a startled little cry as Willard suddenly hefted her into his arms. He’d had some vague idea of carrying her up the stairs, but the whole issue of walking and carrying Amy was getting to be a bit of a logistical challenge. He made it through the archway to the living room and lowered her onto the couch, collapsing happily on top of her.

A heaven of kissing and caressing followed. Willard had Amy’s firm breasts in his hands now, under the shirt, over the bra. She unzipped her tight jeans and started to wriggle out of them, underpants and all. He took his hands from her breasts, tugging at her bra hooks. Willow had done this literally thousands of times. She could do it one handed behind her back in the dark while talking on the phone. Willard couldn’t quite remember how. His hands were shaking. His brain was in need of oxygen. He was getting frustrated. Amy rose slightly against him, her pants around her knees, her bare bush inches from his hard cock and twisted her own hands behind her to unfasten the offending undergarment. She finished by pulling her shirt off over her head.

Willard buried his face in her chest, breathing her in. The desire he felt was so ferocious so close to hunger... that it made him think of Oz. His erection softened by about forty percent. He backed off from her a few inches, propped himself on his arms against the seat and back of couch and sighed. Amy stubbornly refused to take the hint. She kicked her shoes off and then her pants and reached to pull him back down to her. She felt his passive resistance. He looked down at her perfect body with desire and regret. She looked back desperately in return, wounded in the crossfire of his internal conflict. She arched her body against him, kissing him, clinging to him determinedly, almost hostilely. His resistance weakened. Something gave in his soul and in his shoulders at the same time. He fell into her embrace. His mouth found her breasts again. His hands moved up the inside of her thighs. Her cunt was soft and wet. His fingers slid easily inside her. There was a strangeness to the familiarity of knowing what she was feeling. She wrapped one hand around his cock and squeezed gently. Electricity skipped and jumped along the awkwardly completed circuit. There was no one else in the world now. The world was no bigger than the couch. Smaller. There was no room for two separate persons. He pushed himself inside of her. They became one creature, a universe unto itself. The universe was a turmoil of volcanic motion.

The door bell rang. The creature fell to Earth. For a few seconds, a minute, they let it ring. He continued to move inside of her deep and fast. Ringing gave way to knocking. “Did you lock the door?” Amy whispered breathlessly against his ear. For a panicked instant, all motion stopped. The knob turned. Two separate persons scrambled apart, retreating to opposite ends of the sofa.

“Hello?” Xander called, sticking his head through the front door, “Willow?” What could he see from that angle? Mostly the back of the couch. Willard tossed Amy her jeans and underpants. But her shirt and bra were halfway across the room. His clothes, his guy clothes, were upstairs in his (her) closet.

“Just... give us a minute!” he called desperately. But they were already standing in the tiny foyer. Amy threw an accent pillow in Willard’s lap and, clutching another one to her chest, got up to get the rest of her clothes. She looked more annoyed than embarrassed.

“Oh. My. God.” said Cordelia, her voice expressing disdain rather than surprise. Willard was mortified. He wished he had another pillow to hide his face.

“Hi Xander,”Amy said, more or less apologetically, “Cordelia,” she acknowledged as an afterthought, a little more coolly.

“Well...” said Xander, after a long moment, “We’ll just... right...” He sounded like Willard felt. He backed out the front door, pulling Cordelia after him. “That’s it,” said Xander numbly, sitting down on Willow’s front steps. “The world has gone completely insane.”

“What I don’t get,” said Cordelia, standing, one hand on her hip, the very picture of annoyance, “is that they knew we were coming. I mean, can they not wait a couple of hours? Or at least lock the door. That’s just rude.”

“Giles is boning Buffy,” Xander continued, laying out the evidence in support of his thesis, exactly as if she had not spoken. “Willow’s a guy... and with Amy. And I—”He stopped short. “...just put Willow’s boyfriend in the hospital.” It was not an adequate course correction. Cordelia stared at him coldly, seeing a parallelism in the first two supporting sentences that the third clearly lacked. Was that really how he saw their relationship? The same way her former so called friends saw it? As an aberration? As evidence of a world gone mad?Xander looked apprehensive, but not apologetic, as if he had no idea why she was suddenly mad at him.

What in the name of God was she doing here? By every standard of judgment she had ever used, these people were exactly what she had always said they were: freaks and losers. Granted Willow was friendly and helpful and brilliant and Buffy was blessed with heroic powers and a modicum of fashion sense. And okay, technically, they did things every single day that were more important than anything Cordelia would do in her entire life... But she wasn’t dating Willow or Buffy. She was dating Xander F’ing Harris, the lamest member of the lamest clique, a loser among losers. He was less than six months older than her. He didn’t have a car. He didn’t have gas money for _her_ car. His mom bought his shoes at Payless. If he also didn’t love her, didn’t like her; if he couldn’t show her some respect or even be nice to her, what exactly was the point?

“Speak of the devil,” said Xander, in that not really joking way, turning his attention away from her to watch Giles and Buffy pull up in the midlife-crisis-mobile. Buffy leapt from the vehicle and strode purposefully up to the porch. Giles followed several paces behind her, looking grim. Maybe she wasn’t the only one finding trouble in her fools’ paradise Cordelia decided.

“What’s the what?”asked Buffy apprehensively.

“We’re waiting for Willard and Amy to get their clothes on,” Cordelia explained bluntly.

“All, bow before Cordelia, Queen of tact,” Xander teased.

“Marvelous,” said Giles sarcastically, responding to the news rather than the commentary. “Nice to know everyone has their priorities in order.” He got three looks in varying degrees of scorn and resentment in exchange for that comment, but Buffy’s was the most withering. “Well excuse me for wanting to get down to business,” he said defensively. “There is still a killer ghost terrorizing the school, yes?”

“Yeah,” said Buffy in mock agreement, “don’t they know two people’s lives don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world?”

“Um, this is Amy and Willow, we’re talking about,” Xander reminded her.

“And we’re what?” Buffy argued, “The committee for the preservation of logic in romantic relationships?”

“Yeah, alright,” Xander conceded, “but the last time I checked a relationship is supposed to have two people in it, not three.”

“Humph,” Cordelia scoffed audibly.

“We have a counter point?” Buffy asked dryly.

“More like a look who’s talking,” said Cordelia bitterly.

“Here we go again,” said Xander, just as bitterly, “I couldn’t possibly care what happens to my friends just because they’re my friends. No! If I don’t like seeing them manipulated by unscrupulous—”

“I’m standing right here!” Giles interjected indignantly.

“Then you should be glad someone around here agrees with you,” Buffy rejoined coolly. “In fact,” she added bitterly, addressing Xander as well, “why don’t you men get together and decide what I’m allowed to do and what it makes sense for me to feel and just come back and tell me when you’ve got it all worked out? Hell you might as well invite my dad too, Principal Snyder, Judge Fondren, maybe a couple of guys from the Council; I mean every single one of you knows more about how to live my life than I do, right?”

There was no responding to that, especially from a girl who could physically rip your arms off if she really wanted to. Everyone stood where they were, fuming silently. After another minute or two, Amy stuck her head out of the door. “You can come in now,” she said acidly, “if you’re through screaming at each other. But Willard is upset enough as it is, and if you say anything to hurt him, you will be very sorry.”

“Don’t threaten us,” said Buffy icily. “Every single person here cares more about Willow’s feelings than you do.”

“I don’t,” Cordelia pointed out smiling cheerfully. “I’m here to fight ghosts.”

“Here here,”said Giles appreciatively. “Let’s all of us get down to business, shall we.”

“Yes,” said Amy bitingly, “let’s.”

But, there wasn’t really enough business for everyone to get down to. Buffy, Xander and Cordelia were left in the living room temporarily purposeless while the three amateur magicians retired to the kitchen to tinker with the work of a professional. Buffy couldn’t help noticing that Xander and Cordelia practically sprinted for the arm chairs, leaving the couch to her.“What did we even come here for?” Cordelia sulked. “I could be getting my nails done right now.”

“Well, I’d hate for a little life and death situation like this to get in the way of your all important pampering,” Xander snarled.

“They need us to be ready, so we can do the ritual as soon as they get the details worked out,” Buffy explained, ignoring the tension between them.

“Which involves what, exactly?” Xander asked. “I mean,a spell is pretty much a recipe. Don’t we just follow the instructions?”

“Yeah,” said Cordelia sarcastically. “Magic is as easy as baking a cake. Everyone is just too happy with the world the way it is to bother to do any.”

“Maybe everyone else doesn’t turn the world around and look at it from every crazy angle until they find something to be unhappy about,” Xander answered.

“Katherine’s notes are from a specific casting,” Buffy informed them, continuing to avoid the crossfire of their bickering. She had enough of her own relationship drama to deal with without getting sucked into anyone else’s. “Apparently she was hired to do a ghost clearance for a couple in Elmwood a few years ago. We have the blow by blow on what she did that actually worked, but not the sources she was working from to decide what to do. So they’re trying to kind of work back to a template from the example we have and then refit that to our ghost.”

“So where do we fit in?” Xander asked.

“Maybe loser ghosts respond to the presence of living losers,”Cordelia suggested caustically

“We need three pairs of people to do the chanting,” Buffy explained. “Three couples, boy/girl, hence the reappearance of Willard.”

“Like couple, couples?” Cordelia asked, “I mean that wasn’t like... homework that we walked in on?”

“No,” said Buffy brows furrowed. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Well if it was, remind me to skip that class,” said Xander.

“Oh I don’t know,” Cordelia retorted, “maybe you could learn a few things.”

If the actual relationship status of the participants made a difference, Buffy thought, they might be in real trouble. Unless, of course, the required status was monumentally screwed up. Between Giles’ seriously belated attack of conscience, Xander and Cordy playing a rerun of their life before they became Sunnydale’s anything-but-it-couple, and Willow and Amy’s pushing the envelope on the definition of cheating; they were hitting a perfect three out of three on that score. Somehow, Buffy didn’t think that was quite the recipe for putting this particular ghost out of his misery. In fact, she wondered if all of the current romantic upheaval at good old Hellmouth High might not be what was feeding this insanity. After forty-three years of holding his peace, it hardly made sense that this ghost was making trouble now _just_ because the Sadie Hawkins Dance was coming up. Apparently that happened every year, and it wasn’t even on campus.

Buffy’s pulse quickened with sudden realization. “Guys,”She said, “how long has the Sadie Hawkins thing been held at the Bronze? I mean, didn’t it used to be on campus at some point?”

“Yeah,” said Xander. “It used to be at the old gym. It was still there when my mom asked my dad on their first date twenty-whatever years ago.”

“So why was it moved?” Buffy questioned. “And how did Snyder, who knows nothing, know to shut the campus down after dark, even if it didn’t work?”

“Ohhhhh,” said Cordelia, eyes widening, “This has happened before! It happens the same time as the dance.”

“Well, nothing happened last year,” Xander pointed out.

“Well there wasn’t a teacher murdered on campus two weeks before the dance last year,” Cordelia pointed out, headed towards the same conclusions Buffy was reaching. “Or these two screwing like rabbits,”she added, indicating Buffy with a cock of the head.

Buffy felt ill. A giant fist squeezed her heart. Owen Thurman’s blasted face filled her mind’s eye. So, it was all her fault after all. She wanted to weep. She wanted to curl into a tight little ball and die. There wasn’t time. Buffy got up on her feet while she still could and marched into the kitchen. Xander and Cordelia trailed after her, exchanging worried looks. “We can’t do this spell,” she said flatly.

“Buffy,” said Giles, “we have to. We have to put a stop—”

“No,” Buffy explained resolutely, cutting him off in mid sentence. “We’re feeding it. Secrets, lies, sex, betrayal... If the six of us go in there, we’re only going to make it stronger. Hell, we’ll probably all pair up and shoot each other.”

“Good Lord!” said Giles, rapidly scanning a sheaf of notes in his hands. “Buffy’s right!”

“You don’t have to act like it’s a _complete_ shock,” she pointed out.

He smiled warmly, mildly apologetically, amused at himself, “Indeed,” he acknowledged. Buffy’s heart was squeezed in a completely different way. Giles must have felt it too because he gave her that Goddamned look again. Buffy didn’t know if she wanted to kiss him or sock him in the jaw.

“Ahem!” said Willard. He looked pretty well decided on the issue of jaw socking. So did Xander. Amy and Cordelia each looked like they wanted to sock someone completely different.

“There, you see?!” said Buffy triumphantly, accusing.

“Okay, okay,” said Willard, “so what do we do we do about it?”

Giles brow knit thoughtfully. “From what I gather,” he said, “the spirit doesn’t have to be active for this ritual to work. If history suggests it may go dormant again after this dance, I propose we simply wait it out. The school _is_ locked up tight, no one going in or out. Why not finish this up on Monday morning?”

“Well, why do it at all, then?” Xander asked.

“Because we’re all still going to be just as screwed up this time next year,” Cordelia explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?” Xander asked. “Why we with the being screwed up?”

“Because,” said Cordelia exasperated, “I’ll still be in love with you, and you’ll still be an idiot!” Xander looked too stunned to speak at first and then too angry, too confused, not knowing what part of the contradiction to respond to.

“That pretty much sums it up,” Buffy agreed, looking pointedly at Giles, who looked an odd sort of abashedly exasperated back.

“All right, so we’re done for the day,” said Amy smoothly, “That means you can all go now.”

“Excuse me?” said Willard incredulously, “Whose house is this?”

“Gee,” said Amy, mock innocent, flashing her sweetest smile, “I think the deed says Sheila Rosenberg.” Willard looked both angry enough to kill and at the same time too defeated to bother. Buffy had a sense that she was missing something. Giles looked puzzled as well.

Willard made a theatrical production of glancing at the kitchen clock. “It probably is about time you guys got going,” he said.“If I ...um... change now, I can still make my lawyer’s appointment after all.”

“Already gone,” said Cordelia dragging Xander towards the front door.

“One, last thing,” said Buffy. “I need you to print me out a copy of that map you made this morning.”

“Alright,” said Giles as they headed back towards the car, “what are you planning to do with that?”

“Slaughter a nest of vampires,” Buffy replied cheerfully. “They’re the purple dots, right here, see?”

“This was made this morning, after sunrise?” He inquired, getting in the driver’s seat.

“Yep,” said Buffy, leaning over from the passenger side and spreading the map on the steering wheel. “So I figure for the most part they’ve stayed put.”

“Well this is marvelous!” Giles exclaimed with genuine delight. “I have to admit, Ms. Madison is certainly proving to be a useful... ally, notwithstanding certain... complications.”

“Like the fact that she’s an evil bitch?” Buffy suggested.

“Precisely,” Giles agreed.

“I figure this group right here,” Buffy went on, turning her attention back to the map, “in the big mausoleum over at Restfield. There’s only three of them, so almost no chance of things getting out of control, and not likely to be much of an audience in the middle of a weekday.”

“It’s as good a place to start as any,”Giles agreed, putting the car in gear as Buffy folded up the map.

 ****

“Okay, what the hell was that about?!” Xander demanded as soon as they were back in Cordelia’s car. “What is this terrible thing I’ve supposedly done to make you so pissed off at me that we can wake the dead with the power of our screwed-upness?”Cordelia glared at him a moment then turned her attention to the road in front of her. He began to think that was all the response he was going to get, all the answer she in her superiority thought his idiocy deserved.

“Three weeks ago,” she said at last, “I had a life. I had friends. Hell, I had followers! People looked up to me. To _me_ , Xander. And I spit in their faces. Everyone I cared about, everyone I shared my life with; they all hate me now. They all think I’m a fool. I traded all that I had to be with you, and I thought it was _cheap_! Because I got what I wanted, what I chose.

“But I didn’t choose this, Xander. I don’t want to be your witless foil. I don’t want to be your punching bag. I don’t want to be the reformed ex-bitch who gets to grow and change and learn to appreciate your oh so superior system of values. And I don’t want to be the girl you fool around with when you’re not too busy fantasizing yourself as the heroic male lead to Willow or Buffy. I love you; I make love to you! I’ve given you everything! Everything! And you treat it like it’s nothing!”

“Wow,” said Xander shaken, “that was uh... a good first reading... but I think you’re underplaying a little. Could we maybe go a little more dramatic with this scene?”

“Oh that’s great,” Cordelia fumed, “Make another joke.”

“Come on, Cordy,” he cajoled and chided at the same time, “I joke about everything. You know how I feel about you.”

“No, Xander, I don’t know.” She insisted,“How would I know? If you love me so much, why can’t you cut me even the tiniest bit of slack for being who I am? Why is it that whenever I say anything that’s not exactly what you think I should feel, you get to throw your little barbs of wit at me and have a big laugh with your gal pals about what a shallow bitch I am!”Cordelia paused a moment, sniffing back actual tears. “Damn it, Xander, I’m tired of feeling like the newest member of the We Hate Cordelia Club!” The tears weren’t all getting held back. A few of them were actually falling.

“Oh, God,” Xander, all but moaned, horrified. He couldn’t think of anything to say next. Cordelia wasn’t bitching at him just to bitch. She was in pain, real honest, legitimate pain, and somehow it was his fault and he didn’t know why and he didn’t know what to do about it. He felt like he was losing her. He probably was losing her. That could _not_ happen.“Cordelia, I love you!” he cried from a place of anguished panic. “I love your smile and your eyes, and the way your smile shows in your eyes and your laugh and _your_ barbed, sarcastic jokes, which I admit are way better than mine, because you’re way smarter and way cooler than me and way, way better than I deserve!” His heart was pounding with an excitement that had nothing to do with panic, a turmoil that had at its center something still and certain. Cordelia’s eyes, her beautiful eyes, blinking away the last of her tears, told him she felt it too. Horns honked. “Ah!” Xander screamed, “Eyes on the road! Eyes on the road!”

Cordelia laughed, returning her attention to her driving, “You scream like a woman,” she said, eyes twinkling.

“Well all my friends are girls,” he pointed out grinning, “I spend way too much time around them.”

****

“Turn left on Cherry,” Buffy instructed Giles matter-of-factly.

“That’s not the way to Restfield,” he pointed out apprehensively, wishing he felt a little more puzzled about what Buffy had in mind.

“Nope,” she said glibly. “Turn right when you get to 3rd Street,” she added, much earlier than any such instruction was needed, confirming his suspicions. Giles pulled into the parking lot of a church and stopped.“Giles,” Buffy said earnestly, “I’m going to do this.”

“It’s a mistake,” he said flatly.

“Is it?” Buffy challenged. “Half a dozen people outside the Council already know I’m the Slayer. Amy Madison knows for God’s sake. Why not my mom?”

“Well, there was that slight incident of her having you locked up in an asylum a couple of years ago,” he pointed out.

“Hence the visual demonstration,” she countered. He still looked decidedly skeptical. “Giles,” Buffy explained plaintively, willing him to get a clue, “I can’t go on like this anymore. I need my mom. I need to be able to talk to her about my life. I need her to know who I am, what I am. I need her support, especially now...” She struggled to keep the bitterness out of her voice, “...Especially if I’m going to be doing this on my own.”

Pangs struck Rupert somewhere between his heart and his conscience. “I’m tired of being the screw-up,” Buffy went on desperately, “I’m tired of being the bad daughter who constantly disappoints her and messes up our lives for no reason.” There were tears shining in her eyes now. “I don’t want to be the lousy, irresponsible teen mom who dumps her kid on her parents to go out and raise hell every night. She deserves better than that. _I_ deserve better than that. Giles, I need my mother to respect me.”

Giles sighed, putting the car back in gear. “What do you need me to do?” he asked.

“Make sure she has a good view,” Buffy instructed. “Don’t let her get in the way.”

**** 

It was a slow afternoon at the Gallery. Twelve-thirty crawled to one o’clock, one o’clock to one-thirty. Too much time to think. Joyce couldn’t take her mind off the school shooting. She should have insisted that Buffy come straight here. She should have gone straight home herself. She needed to put her arms around her. She needed to feel her daughter’s heart beating.

But if Buffy felt the need for any comfort or support, if she wanted to feel the strong and loving arms of a trusted adult, she had probably gone to Rupert Giles. Why? What was he to her that Joyce wasn’t? One possible answer to that question was all too obvious, but somehow Joyce really doubted it. He didn’t seem the type. The truth was, more probably, that there was too much history of crime and punishment between Buffy and Joyce for her daughter to feel safe confiding in her or coming to her for guidance. Mr. Giles, never having had children, probably didn’t understand the boundaries he was crossing by setting himself up as an alternative. He didn’t understand the need for a parent to retain authority and control of her own household or how easily those things could be undermined by well-meaning interference. He didn’t understand how much she loved Buffy or how ready she was to be there for her if only she were given half a chance.

The truth was... that they were pulling up to the front of her shop right now in his shiny new convertible?Joyce walked up to the front door and peered through the glass. His face looked grim, hers urgent, determined. Joyce’s first thought was that this must have something to do with the shooting, that Buffy _did_ have more to do with it than being on campus at the time,that she had gone to Mr. Giles with her troubles and at last he had had sense enough to bring her to her mother. But Buffy didn’t look worried or conflicted. Mr. Giles did.

Joyce stepped outside. “Buffy,” she said, “what’s going on?”

“I think the time has come to start telling you the truth,” Buffy said earnestly,“about my life, about everything.” Mr. Giles gave Buffy a subtly apprehensive look.

“What’s the catch?” Joyce teased nervously.

“The catch is,” Buffy said seriously, “this time you have to believe me. This time you have to give me a chance to show you the truth.”

“This time?” asked Joyce puzzled, “when did you try to tell me about your life before?”

“Too long ago,” Buffy admitted. “But I’m trying now, so if you really want to know, please, get in.”Joyce turned and locked the Gallery door, leaving the lights burning. Buffy climbed over the seat into the back, allowing Joyce to more easily enter the two door vehicle. She found herself riding shotgun next to Mr. Giles, who looked less than happy with this arrangement.

“Where are we going?” Joyce asked.

“To the cemetery,” he answered gravely.

Joyce laughed. “You have the same sense of humor as my daughter,” she said. But five minutes later, he was putting the car in park near the front gate of Restfield Cemetery. Buffy hopped from the vehicle. She had a flashlight in her hand. Mr. Giles opened his door and got out as well. “What on Earth are we doing here?” Joyce demanded, getting out of the car herself.

“Hunting vampires,” Buffy replied cheerfully. She was smiling, blasé even, but she wasn’t joking. Joyce was horrified. Suddenly, she knew when Buffy had ‘tried to tell her’ about her life. It was happening again. She looked at Mr. Giles to try to gauge his reaction, to see if he understood the seriousness of the situation. He in turn was looking apprehensively at her, trying to gauge her reaction.

Buffy continued to stride purposefully into the graveyard, headed for a large mausoleum. “Buffy, stop!” Joyce called, lengthening her stride to try and catch up. She still lagged behind Buffy, Mr. Giles falling in close behind her. “This has happened before,” Joyce explained over her shoulder. “It’s not good to play along. We need to get her to a hospital.”

“I’m not crazy, Mom,” Buffy called, sounding mildly exasperated. “I’m a Vampire Slayer.” She reached the door of the mausoleum and jerked open it’s very solid looking front doors, snapping a heavy iron chain in the process. Before Joyce could process that observation, she disappeared inside. Just at the entrance, Joyce tried to turn aside, but Mr. Giles was standing too close behind her, pressing gently forward, so that she found herself walking into the tomb without really meaning to.

“We have to get her out of here!” she tried desperately to explain, taking a step back as she turned to face him. Silhouetted in the doorway, his face in shadow, the tweedy character of his wardrobe concealed, Mr. Giles seemed a much larger man than she had previously thought, not only taller, but broader, more solid. He was almost a total stranger to her.

“Just watch,” he said. His voice was, not cold, not unkind, but hard, inelastic. He was not merely playing along.

Joyce backed up from him another step, near panic now. “Buffy,” she said, struggling for a tone of authority, fear reading as anger in her voice, “you come out of this tomb right now!”

“Shusshh!” Buffy hissed, her outline resolving itself from the darkness ahead as Joyce’s eyes adjusted. “Stay by the door,”she warned. “Don’t give them room to get behind you.”

“Buffy, you need help,” Joyce tried again. She grabbed Buffy by the arm, or tried to. Buffy shrugged her off, shoving her effortlessly away so that she had to struggle to stay on her feet. From deeper within the tomb, Joyce imagined she heard moaning, stirring like something waking up.

“Giles,”Buffy commanded calmly, her own tone of authority much more convincing than her mother’s. The man took a step towards Joyce, putting a firm hand on her elbow. He tugged her,more by will than by force, towards the doorway. She found herself standing next to him, his firm, restraining hand on her shoulder, unable to think or react properly to the surreal circumstances.

“Trust me,” he said, mildly, “we’ll be safer over here.”

Buffy turned on her flashlight and stood it on end on top of a concrete lidded sarcophagus. The chamber was filled with a dull illumination. Joyce could see now that there _was_ something waking in inside the mausoleum. Someone, in fact three someone’s, homeless men she guessed from their appearance, were huddled against the far wall. One of them was getting groggily to his feet while another rolled over, one arm flung across his eyes, and demanded, “Who opened that fucking door?” There was a garbled quality to his speech that didn’t quite fit the pattern of a drunkard’s slur. It was as if he had something in his mouth.

“Hold this,” said Buffy, tossing Joyce her purse. She caught it automatically, then dropped it again as she realized what her daughter had gotten out of it. It was a wooden stake, large, solid looking, very sharp.

“Oh God, Buffy, no!” Joyce wailed helplessly as she watched her pregnant seventeen-year-old psychotic daughter advancing, weapon in hand, towards the hapless group of indigents. She tried to pull away from Mr. Giles’ grasp, but he held fast, his hand biting mercilessly into her shoulder. In an instant, his other arm was around her waist, pinning her right arm to her side.

“Get up,”the standing man called to his companions, a grin in his voice, “Someone sent us some snacks.”

“Save me some,”the second man mumbled, “and shut the damned door.” But the third man suddenly stiffened, like a dog picking up the scent of danger. In an instant he was on his feet. His face was horribly deformed. It was more than physical. The light that burned in his eyes was not human. Suddenly, the first man was just as hideous. Logic, if she had the serenity to apply any, would have told Joyce that the light had simply shifted, revealing what had always been the case. But logic would have been wrong. Joyce saw what she saw. The light didn’t shift. His _face_ shifted. An image, a memory flashed through her mind: the snarling bleached blond thug from Parent Teacher Night, a different face similarly distorted. She thought of Angel’s empty yet not empty eyes. ‘Vampires!’ Something inside her screamed. She had a perceptible feeling of struggling to cling to reality. Dear God, was it genetic?

There wasn’t room in Joyce’s head to wonder any more what men or beasts these were. Her attention was arrested by the scene in front of her. Buffy was circling, grim-faced, stake in hand, ready for battle. She was focused on the third being, but keeping the others in sight. The first one looked a little frightened now, a little less cocky. Suddenly, number three hurled himself at Buffy, hissing and spitting, aiming at her right shoulder, trying to get behind her stake hand. She caught him in the throat with an elbow, sending him staggering backwards, but he kept to his feet. He was between Buffy and Joyce now. Buffy had to turn to face him, leaving creature number one an open shot at her back. Both monsters lunged for her at once. Joyce screamed, already seeing her daughter ripped apart. But it didn’t happen that way. Buffy leapt vertically five feet in the air. Doing the splits in perfect cheerleader form, she cleared the space beneath her. The two vam—whatever they were—crashed headlong into one another. Hanging from a ceiling beam with one hand, her stake still clutched in the other, Buffy brought her feet back together, kicking both of them in the back of the head at the same time. As they collapsed to the floor, she dove onto them, making a sandwich of the formerly cocky one.

“What the _hell_?” murmured the sleepy non-combatant opening one bleary eye in time to see what Joyce was seeing. Buffy plunged her stake deep in the sandwiched villain’s back. ‘She’s killing him,’ Joyce realized, weak with horror. Suddenly the man (or whatever he was) exploded! For a moment, dust and ash rained everywhere, like the debris from a tiny volcano. Both eyes open now, the as yet unmolested occupant of the tomb shrieked in terror and scrambled behind the sarcophagus. His surviving companion made a much grimmer noise deep in his throat as he grappled with Buffy, fighting her for his life. He lost. Joyce lost her grip on something, but it wasn’t reality. Reality was that horrible, frightening thing that she was falling into, the thing she had been denying for the last two years. She hadn’t been aware of the intensity with which she was struggling to break free from the too strong arms of the alleged librarian until she ceased to struggle, sagging against him. Something snapped, something that was holding her back or holding her together. She couldn’t tell if she had been set free or broken.

Buffy stood, brushing the dust from her clothes. With a smile that was not altogether kind, she twirled her stake like a gun slinger in a Wild West Show and tossed it carelessly over her shoulder. Her smile softened. She winked at her mother. “Two down,” she said cheerfully, springing into a double somersault plus a half, landing in a one hand stand on top of the sarcophagus, taking up her flashlight with the other hand. With a deft one hand spring, she made her somersault a full triple, landing lightly on her feet behind the sarcophagus. Even Giles was astonished by her athleticism. She was pulling out all the stops, outdoing herself for Joyce’s benefit. Shining her light into the darkest corner of the tomb, Buffy dragged the cringing vampire out and up on to his feet. Twisting an arm behind his back, she forced him before her into the relatively well lit area nearer the door. Stopping short of the partly obscured rectangle of direct sunshine coming in from above and behind Joyce and Giles, Buffy forced the creature to kneel before her mother. The demon was actually crying. “How you doin’ there, Mom?”Buffy asked briskly but not unkindly.

“I... don’t know,” Joyce breathed. “Buffy, what is happening?”

Buffy sighed. “You tell her,” she instructed the vampire.

“I... what...?” The poor beast quavered.

“Tell the nice lady what you are,” she clarified.

“I’m a vampire,” the creature mumbled between sobs.

“What was that?” Buffy asked, twisting its arm a little tighter.

“I’m a vampire!” the thing cried out pitifully, “Please,” he begged, “My name’s Lionel, I’m only 55.”

“Okay, _Lionel_ ,” Buffy said cuttingly “ _now_ tell her what you do for a living... so to speak.”

“Look, I’m just a call sucker,” he pleaded. “I’m not hurting anyone. I haven’t killed anyone in over four years, I swear. Please, Slayer, please, let me go.”

“Wait, you’re a what?”Buffy asked, taken aback.

“People call me, I come over and bite them. Look, I have a beeper right here on my belt. They don’t mind. They like it. They tip even. But I’ll stop if you want me to, I swear. I’ll go clean, nothing but butcher’s blood, I swear, just please, please let me go!”

Buffy made an unpleasant face. “You know, you’re really taking the fun out of this for me,” she said with genuine disappointment and maybe a little uneasiness. “Anyway, the point is, like I said, Mom...” Buffy kicked the stake she had dropped into the air, caught it with one hand and brought it down into Lionel’s back, bursting him into a little puff of particulate matter. “I’m The Slayer.”

“You... kill vampires?” Joyce asked weakly, “Professionally?”

“It’s really more of a calling,” Buffy explained, regaining her equanimity.

“Into every generation a Slayer is born,” Giles recited. He still had one hand on Joyce’s shoulder, more supportive than restraining now. “One girl in all the world. A chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.”

“And she is me,”said Buffy.

“Oh, God,” Joyce gasped, “... all this time...?”

“Going on two years now,” Buffy confirmed still smiling. “ _That’s_ what I’ve been doing every night: fighting the forces of darkness.”

“But you’re still pregnant?” Joyce asked dryly, seeming to grasp for an emotional foothold in a part of reality she could make better sense of.

“Alright,” Buffy conceded, “that’s what I’ve been doing _almost_ every night. Jeez, Mom, cut a girl some slack. There’s a war on.”

“And _you_ are?” she asked Giles pointedly.

“I’m her Watcher,” he explained, “I’m sort of an official guide a... trainer if you will.”

“He’s part of a big old mystical Council that keeps tabs on the forces of darkness so I know what the heck I’m fighting,”Buffy explained.

“Then you’re not having an affair,”said Joyce, relieved. Mr. Giles made a sound between a laugh and a cough.

“No,” said Buffy, seeming stricken by the insinuation. “We’re really, really not.”Rupert felt like someone had punched him in the stomach, but since he was the someone, he didn’t see that he had much right to complain about it. Deciding something once and for all is a wonderful thing. Burning bridges to the past prevents falling back on bad habits... provided you’re on the right side of the bridge when you’re burning it. Right now Rupert felt like swimming, like asking forgiveness for his repentance. ‘Dear saint, give me my sin again...’

“Oh Lord,” Joyce was saying again, “Angel... is... a vampire?”

“Technically,” Buffy admitted.

“And vampires... well most of them... live by what? Killing people and sucking their blood?

“Pretty much.” She admitted. “But... Angel wasn’t always like that...”

“Vampires, you see,” Giles interjected, in no mood to hear Buffy describe what being with Angel was or wasn’t like,“are... a type of demon, one of the oldest types still living on Earth, directly descended from the last of the old ones whereas most other types of demons have been... gradually reintroduced.”

“The old ones?” Joyce asked, struggling to absorb information for which she lacked a sufficient context.

“Ah, yes, sorry,” Giles apologized, backing up a few concepts. “This world, this universe, used to be a demon realm, a sort of... hell I suppose you would say. Then it was... given over, you might say to mortals, to us. The old ones, the demons, were driven out. The last of their kind mixed his blood with that of a human who was near death. The man became a form possessed, a living corpse, animated by the demon’s spirit. This was the first vampire, and the model of all who came after. You see vampires typically kill and feed, leaving their victims simply dead. However, they may, if they so choose, feed the victim from their own blood, causing him or her to rise as a vampire.”

“I... think I need to sit down,” Joyce said.

“Let’s get back to the car,” Buffy suggested. This time, Buffy and Joyce both got in the back. Giles felt dismissed, relegated to the role of chauffeur, though he felt a fool for feeling it. Buffy obviously needed to be emotionally supportive of her mother, he chastised himself. And, regardless of what he had intended to do or to be, he was, from her quite understandable point of view, the prat who had just dumped her... twenty hours after declaring his love for her... knowing she was carrying his child... because he _didn’t_ want to ruin her life... by explaining to her that it was his responsibility as an adult to her as a child! ‘God,’ he thought, ‘I _am_ an idiot.’ _The question is, what are you going to do about it?_

“So, as I was saying,” he took up the thread of his lecture, speaking briskly, not wanting to leave himself the opportunity to think too much or to say any of what he was thinking. “Vampires roam the Earth making more of their kind and the Slayer fights them, keeps their numbers down. As... additional demons and supernatural threats have come to Earth, the Slayer has battled those as well, being perhaps the person in the best position to do so.”

Joyce’s expression moved from generally confused to specifically puzzled. “Buffy, how do you battle the forces of darkness for all the world without ever leaving Sunnydale?”

Buffy shrugged, “It turns out, Sunnydale is the world capital of darkness.”

“For the time being,” Giles agreed. “You see, this town sits at the center of a mystical convergence, a sort of portal between worlds, sometimes called a ‘Hellmouth’.”

“On account of it’s being the mouth of Hell,”Buffy interjected helpfully.

“Essentially, yes,” Giles agreed. “You see there are other mystical convergences, and this one is currently closed, thanks to Buffy, but it is the most... seismically active point of convergence I guess you could say to barrow a geological metaphor, so more demons and other terrible things are drawn here... and there are likely to be more attempts to open it.”

“And now the vampires have killed your boyfriend and made him into one of their own! Oh Buffy, I’m so sorry,” Joyce cried in sympathetic misery for her daughter. Buffy was tempted to take the easy way out on this one. Joyce seemed to be having a lot of trouble processing as it was. But being honest with her mother, bringing her back into her confidence, had been the point of this whole exercise. There was still one thing she might never be able to tell her, but there was no sense adding to that list again already.

“That’s not exactly what happened,” she said quietly. “Angel... was always a vampire, well, for the last couple of centuries, anyway.”

“Wait a minute,” Joyce said incredulously, going into tough mom mode, “You had _sex_ with a demon?”

“See,” Buffy teased, trying to keep things light, “all those times you asked me what was wrong, I _told_ you you didn’t want to know.”

“Angel was no ordinary demon,” Giles felt compelled to explain in her defense. “He was cursed, you see, about a hundred years ago. His soul was restored as a sort of... punishment, making him, for all intents and purposes, a human being, afflicted with a very peculiar form of demonic possession.”

“Until I came along,” said Buffy miserably. She was finding it all too easy, Giles realized, to slot herself back into the bad girl role based on the cues she was getting from Joyce.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he told her firmly. “You... couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known what?” Joyce asked.

“The curse,” Buffy mumbled, barely audible. “According to the Gypsies who cursed him, ‘Angel was meant to suffer, not to live as human.’ They fixed it so that if he was ever for one moment truly happy—” Buffy hid her face in her hands, suddenly unable to speak.

“Oh God,” Joyce moaned, horrified. ‘I haven’t been able to sleep,’ he’d said, ‘since the night we made love.’ “Your father was right; we should have stayed in L.A.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Buffy tried to explain. “It’s a fate thing.”

“I think we should move,” Joyce persisted. “You’re Aunt Arlene says they have some great schools in southeast Illinois.”

“Mom,” Buffy said, shaking her head patiently, “I can’t just leave. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. This is _my_ Hellmouth; I’m responsible for it, 24-7, for the rest of my life.”

 


	12. We, Myself and I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Each of the Scoobies must struggle to understand and deal with who and whose they are. When the vampires of Sunnydale find they must pull together against an effective new tactic by the Slayer, Spike is only too happy to be the "I" in "team".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II:What We Make

“A year?” Willow whined, “A whole year? As in from April of this year to April of next year? As in all the way from too early for early admission to too late for late admission?”

“We’re talking about a couple of C felonies here,” Ms. Graves pointed out unsympathetically, “and half a dozen misdemeanors. All committed, incidentally, on the same night your victim was murdered by an acquaintance of yours who was more than friends with your co-defendant. Under the circumstances, even in Juvenile Court, a year’s probation is a gift.”

Willow sniffed, “Oh yeah,” she grumbled, “‘a pack of blessings.’”

“Listen, kid,” said the attorney severely. “Spare me the melodrama. If you think settling for a third tear University sounds like a fate worse than death, you ought to try six months or a year in Detention. You ought to think about the fact that these charges could have been filed in Criminal Court. They still could be. You want to go to prison over this?”

“Can you give us a minute?” Amy asked, “I’d like to discuss this with my daughter privately.”

Graves shrugged, “See if you can talk some sense into her,” she said, leaving the room.

“Don’t sign that,” Amy said firmly.

“Why not?” said Willow glumly. “You heard her, it’s the best she can do.”

“Well,” said Amy, “maybe we can do better.”

“What do you mean?” Willow asked apprehensively.

“It’s the Prosecutor, Engels, who won’t go less than a year on the probation,” Amy pointed out.

“Yeah,” Willow agreed, “I guess so.”

“In fact, it’s totally up to him to bring charges or not in the first place,” Amy went on.

Willow sat up a little straighter. “I guess that’s true,” she said.

“So at the end of the day,” Amy said, “we’re not really up against this vast institution of the law, just another human being, just a _guy_. Willow, we can control a guy.”

‘Well, one of us certainly can,’ Willow thought, but she said, “With magic?”

“What else did you think I meant,” said Amy dryly.

Willow looked at her miserably. “So, what do we do, exactly?”

Amy seemed to think about it for a moment. A slow smile spread across her face. “I know just the thing,” she said. “We just need to weaken his will a little, make him look at the evidence and not have confidence he can win.”

“That’s perfect!” said Willow, “We can help Buffy out at the same time.”

Amy’s eyes darkened a little, but she reserved comment. “We need to get a piece of him,” she said. “Hair is the easiest, but blood is stronger. Of course, a substantial piece of flesh is the very best, but that probably won’t be necessary.”

“Boy,” Willow said weakly, “this magic stuff sure is ‘fun.’”

“It can be,” said Amy, with a half nervous half wicked smile. Willow gave her a look. A miserable, reproachful, resentful look. Amy sighed; exhausted, exasperated, lost. “Look,” She said, “let’s just get out of here, okay? Let’s go to the mall and go shopping. We’ve got all day tomorrow to deal with Engels.”

“Okay,” Willow agreed, still not nearly as cheered up as she knew she ought to have been by the hope of escape Amy was offering her. “But I’m going to go ahead and tell Graves I’ll think about it, that way we have a worst case scenario back up plan.”

“Suit yourself,” said Amy crossly, “but I’m telling you, my magic will work.”

“If we can get a hair from the head of the County Prosecutor,” Willow pointed out.

“Gee,” said Amy dryly, as they got their things together to leave, “if only we knew how to disguise ourselves, we could get him to let us into his office or his house or something.”

“Well, I guess that’s true,” Willow admitted, feeling a little more optimistic, but not a lot more cheerful. There still seemed to be an awful lot of ‘we’ in her life, and with every new challenge they took on together, she felt herself more and more indebted to, more and more dependent upon Amy. “Maybe we should call Buffy and Cordelia,” she suggested, “see if they want to go to the mall with us.”

“Fine with me,” said Amy, still pouting a little, “after all, it’s not like your mom’s going to object.” Willow tried to tell herself that Amy couldn’t possibly know how much comments like that hurt her, or she wouldn’t keep making them. She wasn’t convinced. She had known Amy, or thought she had, since the sixth grade. In junior high they had been ‘best friends’ in a slumber party, share your least important secrets sort of way. But there had never really been any depth to their friendship until her father’s death, until her mother had turned away from her, until her closest friends had been banished from her life. Then, like a miracle, Amy was there. Amy had been one of only two people who _were_ there to hear her sorrows and to hold her when she cried. Through magic, Amy had been the one to show her something she could care about, something she could feel positive about again. For a couple of weeks it had been exactly what she needed. Oz was her boyfriend; Amy was her friend friend, and together they helped fill in the gaps in her life just a little, just enough for her to go on.

But now, the better she got to know Amy, the worse she liked her. Amy was tired of listening to Willow’s troubles. Amy hated Willow’s friends. Amy treated Willow’s money (okay technically her moms credit card) like it was her own. Amy was temperamental and selfish and mean spirited and manipulative. Amy wanted her to be someone she was not, literally. Yet somehow she and Amy had become a ‘we’, a couple, a chained at the hip pair she couldn’t easily get out of. Because she needed Amy. To be her _mom_ of all things. And because she wanted Amy to be... not her mom. Because she was dying to touch her, to taste her, to have sex with her. But not the sex Amy wanted. All of which made Willow like her even less.

Because she didn’t want to be ‘we’ with Amy. She wanted to be ‘we’ with Oz. She loved him and she missed him and she knew him and she liked him and she could totally picture her someday life with him in some thriving intellectual metropolis surround by music and books and 1.0 children. And if he ever found out about Amy (which how could he not?) he would probably just break up with her instead.

And what did it mean, anyway, that she wanted to have sex with Amy? Not just kissing or making out; hot, girl on girl, hands in new places, doing things she hadn’t even imagined a month ago sex. Was she gay? What about Oz? She wanted to have sex with Oz, didn’t she? To make love to him, to share love with him? Hell yes, she did. And what about Xander? She hadn’t imagined all those years of melting at his glance, of longing for his touch, of agonizing over his rejection. She wasn’t imagining the feelings she had for him now, Willard and Willow alike. Where the heck did _that_ put her on fricking rainbow, anyway? Where it put her was on the verge of a total and complete freak out, a good old-fashioned existential crisis. But she had no idea what she was going to do about it.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Amy observed almost accusingly as they got back in the car. Amy got in the driver’s seat automatically. Again.

“I’m just... tired I guess,” Willow lied. “And hungry,” she added, realizing that she actually was.

“Well no wonder,” Amy observed, nodding at the car clock. It was 4:15. “We never did have lunch. We could grab something at the mall, I guess.”

Willow sighed. “That doesn’t leave much time to shop.”

“We could go home first so you can... change,” Amy Suggested.

“I don’t want to change,” said Willow crossly. “I like being a girl. Anyway, why can’t we just use a glamour?”

“I don’t _want_ a glamour,” Amy objected, getting dangerously close to the heart of the matter. “I want Willard.”

“Tomorrow,” Willow promised. “Tonight I just want to feel... normal, okay?”

“Fine,” said Amy sullenly, “ _Transferré_. Now I look like me and you look like Sheila. It’s the only one I have ready.”

“Eahyek” Willow said shaking herself a little to be rid of the creeping sensation in her skin. It partly worked. “I guess it will have to do,” she agreed. However she or friends might feel about her looking like Sheila, it was still better than actually _being_ Willard, especially with Amy there to lead him around by the...nose.

Willow stopped at the payphone just inside the mall to call Buffy and Cordelia while Amy went ahead to order food with Sheila’s credit card. She was a little nervous when she heard Joyce pick up at Buffy’s. “Hi, Mrs. Summers,” she said, with as much casual cheerfulness as she could manage, hoping for the best.

“Willow,” Joyce said with a sort of neutral surprise, then, with concern, “how are you doing?”

“Better,” Willow said, which for all eternity couldn’t help but be true when you considered the point of comparison. “My mom said I could call... if it’s alright with you.” She added.

“Yes,” said Joyce, “it’s alright. In fact, I almost feel as though I owe you an apology.”

“Really?” said Willow skeptically.

“Buffy and I had a chance to talk today about... everything that’s been going on in her life lately,” Joyce said. Somehow Willow really doubted that. “I’m not saying you didn’t make a mistake. I wish you had come to me. I wish you had both used better judgment, but I also know that you did what you did for Buffy, to help her and not to hurt her, and I’m sorry you have to go through so much trouble over it. I hope you’ll start coming around more... assuming it’s okay with your mother. Buffy could really use a friend right now.”

“Wow,” said Willow. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re kind of an amazing mom?”

“Not that often,” said Joyce, a slightly wry smile in her voice.

“Where is Buffy, anyway?” Willow asked. “I was kind of hoping we could go shopping, or something, before it gets too late.”

“Oh,” said Joyce sounding somewhat unsettled, “she’s out with Mr. Giles.” Something about the way she said his name was... not distasteful exactly but decidedly not comfortable. Exactly which ‘everything’ had Buffy told her about? Willow wondered. It had to be the Slayer thing. Nobody’s mom was _that_ cool. It would be uncool, as a mom, to be _that_ cool.

“What are they ...um doing?” Willow asked.

“Hunting,” said Joyce bleakly, disbelievingly, “vampires. They took your map.”

“Oh,” said Willow, relieved to know what she was supposed to know, then suddenly disappointed that she couldn’t see Buffy after all. “I guess I’ll just... see them at school then.”

“Willow,” said Joyce thoughtfully, “are you really okay?”

“No,” Willow admitted, “but I will be. It’s just... a bad time right now.”

“If you ever want to talk, I’ve been there,” Joyce assured her, “It gets better. It doesn’t get fixed, but it gets better.”Willow made a polite response and got off the line. She knew Joyce meant well, but she also knew that Joyce had never been exactly where she was. In fact, Willow thought, no one had ever been _exactly_ where she was. She didn’t see a heck of a lot of reason to think it would get better in any sense. Her father would always be dead. Her mother would never be there for her, awake or asleep. And it would always be true that she had done what she had done with Amy and not with Oz when Oz was the one and Amy wasn’t.

Suppressing a sigh, she walked as slowly as she reasonably could towards the food court. She didn’t bother calling Cordelia. She didn’t feel like having her around unless Buffy could be there too. She didn’t feel like having to submit to anyone’s appraisal or judgment. She felt like forgetting about everything for a while. She felt like forgetting who she was. She felt like pretending a whole new wardrobe could make her a whole new woman. She felt like shopping.

**** 

Buffy walked out of the condemned hotel dusting the remains of her latest kill from her clothes. She took out her map and marked it with yet another X. She should have been feeling satisfied. Five nests, seventeen vampires, all in one afternoon. That had to be some kind of record. But she had seen no sign of Angel. She looked up at the sky. It was getting late, maybe an hour ‘til sunset, in other words, about five o’clock, about time to be getting home. Truth-be-told she was getting tired. She had to admit, daytime Slaying had its advantages. The vampires were contained, weakened, often asleep. They could be easily taken by surprise, and if things did get hairy it was no big deal to beat a hasty tactical retreat and regroup. But the sheer volume of it made Buffy feel less like a hunter than a shift worker in a slaughter house.

‘Plunge and move on; plunge and move on,’ she thought wryly. She had had a good giggle sharing that bit of Giles’ instruction with Willow a few months ago. Now she guessed the joke was on her. She had gotten the pointy end of the stick, well and truly, just the once. Now he was moving on. However he explained it, however he really meant it, that’s what it amounted too. It was enough to make a girl feel like crumbling into a pile of dust.

Even if she did kill Angel, would that really prove anything to him? The more she mulled over and over what he had actually said to her, the clearer it became that it was not the sincerity of her love he doubted, but the _value_ of it. And in comparison to what? Small town gossip? Council regulations? Some damn statute that said she wasn’t old enough to make up her own mind? The sacred inviolability of the librarian/student relationship? Prioritization most definitely sub-par

Buffy was tempted to march right over to Giles’ house and tell him exactly that, to take him in her arms, to refuse to let him go, to make his mind up for him, just as Cordelia had suggested. But what if she tried to do that and it didn’t work? She couldn’t listen to another lecture from him about the wrongness of the most right thing that she had ever felt. Worse still, he might be persuaded. He might relent. He might take her in his arms and tell her he loved her. He might take her to his bed and make love to her... and get up out of bed repentant and _then_ give her the lecture. The mood she was in, if it came to that, she might actually kill him.

In Memoriam Rupert Giles? The thought made Buffy physically ill. Her mind’s eye was filled once again with the blasted face of Owen Thurman. Okay, so there was no way she could actually kill him, but she would be really, really hurt and super pissed off. She had had enough of that for one day. There was always tomorrow, she decided, for love and war. School was out for the day after all. She still had Angel’s ring in her pocket. She’d take it to Willow and Amy in the morning. Hopefully it was still ‘his’ enough to do the locator spell Willow had mentioned. Once she’d finished things with Angel, once and for all, then she’d worry about how to handle Giles.

Joyce was setting the kitchen table when Buffy came in. 5:30, right on time. She looked exhausted. “Rough day at the office, Sweetheart?” she asked.

“Kind of an awesome day, actually,” Buffy said. Her voice and her smile were cheerful, but her eyes were sad. “I got seventeen vamps counting those first three.”

“Is that a lot?” Joyce asked.

“It’s like championship speed staking,” Buffy informed her. “This map is like a gift from God.”

“That’s good, Honey,” Joyce said supportively. She supposed she ought to feel more pleased. Buffy had just shared more of her day and her life before the table was even set than she had at every other family dinner in the last month. Still, there was something wrong, something deep and serious, that she wasn’t sharing.

“Willow called today,” said Joyce trying to keep the conversation going. “She wanted to see if you were free to go shopping, but I told her you were out hunting with Mr. Giles.”Buffy’s expression sort of flickered. A sharp stab of pain became visible then disappeared again. Joyce guessed it would take more that the total revelation of an unseen supernatural reality to get her daughter out of the habit of hiding her sorrows from her.“She seemed, surprised,” Joyce went on unable to keep from probing, feeling that she was getting close somehow to whatever Buffy was actually feeling and thinking.

“Giles doesn’t go hunting much,” Buffy explained, positively glum now. “He didn’t this time either. He went home to work on that ghost spell for Monday.”

“You mean he left you to fight those things all by yourself?” Joyce asked, worried. “Is that safe?”

Buffy shrugged, “I’m the one with the strength and skill,” she reminded her mother.“I mean, Giles handles himself okay, but for the most part, having someone with me just translates into one more thing I have to worry about.” Buffy seemed to be feeling more blue by the second. Was it something about the hunting itself that was bothering her? Suddenly, Joyce had an unsettling suspicion.

“You didn’t... run into... anybody we know?” Joyce asked awkwardly.

Buffy laughed dryly. “Nice attempt at casual, Mom,” she said. At least her smile reached her eyes a little. “No, I didn’t kill Angel. Hopefully I’ll get him tomorrow though. I’m going to have Willow and Amy do a locator spell.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for that, Buffy,” her mother asked worriedly.

“I really, really am,” Buffy assured her, “I mean, I’m not saying it’ll be fun, but I’m ready to have it over with. I need to be able to move on.”Being able to say even that much about what was bothering her did actually seem to make Buffy feel better. Joyce was relieved, or as relieved as a mother can be who’s still trying to wrap her brain around a reality in which it’s alright to encourage and support her daughter’s plans to slaughter her ex-boyfriend.

As dinner got underway, the conversation started to flow fairly naturally. Joyce had so many basic questions about this frightening shadow world in which her daughter walked, and Buffy seemed pleased to be able to give her some answers and a little reassurance. Compared with the gut wrenching tension of last night’s family fracas, the Gothic horror of tonight’s table talk was practically pleasant. ...Until Joyce thought of one in conjunction with the other. She dropped her fork eight inches onto her plate. It landed with a jarring clink. Her child had been impregnated by a demon! This could not be a good thing.

“Mom, what?” said Buffy, startled, worried, annoyed.

“It just hit me,” Joyce said, “this... ‘baby’ you’re having... I mean... how do you know for sure... what it is... exactly?”And that was the problem with blaming Angel for her pregnancy, Buffy realized. It was one thing to accept a grandchild fathered by a murderous thug, but the potentially demonic offspring of an undead monster was something else. Buffy needed to think of an explanation and fast. It was unforgivably cruel to let her mom worry that the baby could be less than fully human, but the truth was too dangerous to tell. If Buffy thought Giles was being an ass, she could just imagine what her mom would think he was. And the authorities, from London to Sacramento, would agree with her. Hell, _Giles_ agreed with her. It was impossible.

“Look, Mom,” Buffy assured her, “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not like that. Angel has a human...body, and at the time he had a human soul. I promise you, Mom, my baby is one hundred percent human.”

Joyce’s brow remained furrowed, “But how can you know that for sure?” she asked.

“Trust me, Mom,” said Buffy, gently confident, “I know.”

“Do you suppose there’s some way to test for that?” Joyce mused.

“Well, I don’t think it would show up on amniocentesis,” Buffy pointed out. Joyce was neither amused nor reassured. “Look, for a demon to take over a body, at least this particular kind of demon,” Buffy explained, “it has to be dead, that is, the body has to be dead. That’s why they don’t have a— Ooo, heartbeat! There’s a test. They’ll do that at the first appointment.”

“So a vampire is basically a ... _dead body_?” Joyce said, quietly freaking out. “And you...Oh my God, Buffy... that’s...”

“Just like, fresh in the morgue dead,”Buffy said defensively. “Not like rotting zombie dead.” Joyce looked positively ill. Buffy had to admit it sounded less reassuring out loud than it had in her head. “ _Annnnyway_ , she said, “We’re seeing Dr. Kim a week from Monday. We’ll go in; we can hear the teeny tiny heartbeat on the little monitor thingy, and then you can stop worrying, okay?”

“About _that_ anyway,” Joyce agreed weakly, still clearly spun. In fact it kind of freaked Buffy out to take a step back and see the situation from her mother’s point of view.

The horror she saw from that perspective had the unmistakable earmarks of objective reality, yet it did not match her own vividly remembered experience. She shivered at the memory of Angel’s cool touch on her hot skin, of his icy flesh piercing the heart of her, so different than the warm, living, pulsing flesh of her human lover; and yet, the same strange simultaneous sense of surrender and triumph as they each came inside of her, ice and fire, darkness and light, death and life; the same act, the same moment twice, repeated, completed, a universe in three dimensions of space and two of time.

Buffy shook herself a little, trying to clear her head. Her mother was, once again, looking at her as though she might be having a mental health crisis. For all Buffy knew, she might have been. Her thoughts didn’t seem to make any kind of logical sense, and yet she felt an overwhelming sense of truth, as if she were close to some kind of fundamental understanding of love and therefore of everything.

‘And then, on the other hand, we have reality,’ she reminded herself. After all, what had been the results of these two impulsive sexual acts that she was retroactively poeticizing? Angel had been destroyed and had taken Miss Calendar, Dr. Rosenberg and, no doubt, countless others with him. Giles was miserably conflicted and ashamed of himself, to say nothing of the harm that would come to him if the truth ever came out, which it was already pretty close to doing. She was carrying a child that no one on Earth wanted to exist except its mother, who was probably not long for this world. Add it all up, and it didn’t exactly seem like a microcosm of the perfectly ordered universe.

“So...” Joyce said, “how are things going at school?”

****

“A _trench_!” Spike raged, gesturing indignantly at the thing itself, kicking huge clumps of dirt futilely at the much huger hole. “A bloody, sodding, goddamned, fucking, mother-buggering trench!!! To put in _grates_!!!”

“Well...” Keri tried, haltingly, to sooth him, “maybe it won’t let in... _that_ much light. It’s... a big basement.”

“They know we’re here, you stupid bint!” Spike explained crossly.‘How could they not?’ Edwards thought. But he held his tongue. This was exactly what was wrong with Spike’s plan for daytime hunting. He could talk all he wanted about strategy. Daytime hunting meant indoor hunting. It meant confined, discrete, investigable crime scenes, which had to be connected by defined, discrete, discoverable passages to their layer. A place with which, by the way, the Slayer was quite familiar and had visited on at least one memorable occasion.

It was too soon, Spike fumed silently. Growling in frustration, he picked Keri up by the hair and shoulders and flung her against the wall of the building, letting her crumple into the pit. They weren’t nearly ready for the Slayer to find them. Kim crouched behind Edwards. Keri crawled from the pit, more or less unharmed, hissing like a proper demon now, but she cast her eyes down when Spike glared at her. Even this small act of violence had assuaged Spike’s temper a little and he was able to think more clearly.

What did theses Earthworks really indicate? That the official authorities at the school had discovered evidence of vampire infiltration? From his past observations, that didn’t necessarily mean they would be sharing that information with the Slayer. Although she could guess their motives for digging as well as he could, she might not know if they were acting on solid information or merely an abundance of caution. Of course, the Church was the first place she would look. There was no way she could view it in its current state and fail to know that a group of vampires was squatting there, plotting something nasty involving loads of human blood.

So if she couldn’t fail... let her succeed. Let her find and destroy the nest. Hell, let her bollix up the ritual. He only needed to arrange to be elsewhere with Dru at the time. If they were unable to return, so much the better. He’d had it with Sunnydale. If he could show Drusilla once and for all that there was no hope of a Hellmouth cure for her precious Angel, surely she’d be ready to leave as well.

Alternatively, with school out for a long weekend, it might be days before the Slayer got around to them. It was barely possible that they would be ready for her after all. Admittedly, their little band didn’t have a lot to recommend it, but there were bound to be a few other saps like Edwards hanging around town, able bodied vamps who could be lured by the prospect of a cure for someone they were attached to. If nothing else, the cripples and gimps themselves would come, and some of them might be good for cannon fodder, or at least a distraction. He could decide closer to time whether to vacate or stick round for the killing. Either way, the next step in his plan of action was the same, which was a sign of a good strategy, Spike thought.

“Well, don’t just stand there, people!” he exhorted, “let’s move out. Miles to go and all that.”

“Where are we going?” Kim asked hopefully, “To the Bronze?”

“Na,” said Spike, “Let’s go to Willy’s”

“What on Earth are we going to hunt at Willy’s” Edwards asked suspiciously.

“Who said anything about hunting, Mate?” Spike retorted, “We’re recruiting.”

****

After dinner, Buffy excused herself to go call Giles and fill him in on the day’s hunting. His line was busy. She tried him ten times in half an hour, waited another twenty minutes trying to distract herself with homework she knew could wait, and tried him again. Still busy. She glanced over at her alarm clock: 8:05. Who could he be talking to? Her strongest impulse was to go over to his house and see. But she couldn’t think of a single logical reason why this made any sense at all. She was tempted to tell herself that it was a sixth sense impression of something wrong that needed to be investigated. It wasn’t. She just wanted to see him, to touch him, to hear his voice. But he didn’t want that. God!

Buffy spent the next hour trying to work on her French translation but she couldn’t quite convince herself it was _plus importante_. ‘If I try one more time,’ she thought, ‘I know he’ll answer. He has to answer.’ But the line was still busy. Evidently, there was someone Giles was eager to spend as much time with as possible. It just wasn’t Buffy.

****

“I’m telling you!” wailed the old woman, or reasonable facsimile thereof, “the Slayer has psychic powers! She knows where our nests are! She’s breaking them one by one!” Willy’s back room was packed like a convention hall. The atmosphere was a mix of urgency and gloom.

“Well that’s what you get for staying in one place too long,” opined a large burly looking vampire with callous sagacity, eliciting disgruntled murmuring from the crowd.

“Bollix!” Spike declared, walking up to the front of the room like he’d been elected president of the convention. “That’s what we get for living above ground is what. We got burned out of our place two weeks ago. From now on it’s strictly underground for us. Only place to build an army.”

“Say,” Burly challenged, “Aren’t you one of Angel’s boys?”

“ _No_ ,” Spike corrected him, “Angel is one of my boys.”

“Don’t you mean was?” Burly persisted, “See, the way I hear it, the Slayer killed your boy Angel and wiped out your whole crew!”

“Well,” said Spike, brashly, “You heard wrong. Now I will admit,” he added, with just the tiniest hint of good-natured self effacement, “we have suffered some losses. In, fact,” he admitted a little sadly, “she has knocked us back to less than two dozen.” There was worried murmuring from the crowd which he let go on for a count of one, two, three, “—But, we’re better organized, more disciplined, more security savvy than we’ve ever been, and we’re going to come back stronger than ever! And each and every one of you has a once in an unlifetime opportunity to be a part of our growing army and take part in our glorious victory, which will not only rid us of the Slayer, but shake this sorry town to its foundations!

“Now those of you who were with the Master, before the fall, and most of the rest of you if you have any brains, know that the real center of power in this town is the Hellmouth. That’s where the main strength of our group is concentrated, laying the groundwork, gathering sacrificial victims, for a ritual that will use the power of the Hellmouth to tip the balance between light and darkness. What you may not know is that our stronghold sits directly under Sunnydale High School, which is where the Slayer gathers with her minions and plans her attacks. And soon, as soon as the new moon rises, _we_ , my friends, we are going to take Sunnydale High from the ground up in broad daylight, when she least expects it, and kill every last living soul in the place, including the Slayer, as an object lesson to the humans who think they run this town!

“Ladies and Demons, it’s evening in Sunnydale again! We’re taking our Hellmouth back!”

 ****

Willow looked up from her Trig homework at the clock on her living room wall. It was 10:47. Getting on towards bed time, even for a no school night. Shopping was shopped, magic was magicked, dinner was eaten, pop corn was popped and TV watched. Amy sat with her feet up in Ira’s recliner, stroking the fat black rat she had brought home from the mall. She showed no signs of leaving.

“So...”said Willow awkwardly, “Do you need a ride home or...”

“I think I’ll just stay here tonight,” Amy said matter-of-factly. Oh she thought so, did she? “It’ll be easier to get up and get started on everything for tomorrow that way.”

“Stay here where?” Willow asked nervously. Amy knew perfectly well that the guest room was given over to storage, and Sheila’s room was still... well occupied. Was she supposed to sleep in the same bed with her, a foot apart, and not touch her? Were they supposed to be ‘best friends’? Was this a blinking slumber party? Was it _intended_ as some form of torture?

“I’ll sleep on the _couch_ if you want,”said Amy bitterly. “Fond memories and all.”

“What do you want from me?!” Willow demanded angry-sad, overwhelmed, letting out what she’d been holding in all day... or since lunchtime anyway.

“What do _I_ want?” Amy retorted astonished, indignant, “I’ve given you knowledge. I’ve given you power. I gave you my body, my virginity! And I can give you more. I can give you freedom! All I want is your love!”A cold chill ran up Willow’s spine. She’d dated a guy once who used to say things like that.

“I told you,” she said, her voice sounding harsh in her own ears, “I love Oz. I’ve never told you anything else.”

“Then what do _you_ want from _me_ ,” Amy demanded, “now that you have your own life and all your little friends back?”

“Sex!” said Willow, angrily, getting to her feet, “alright, make me say it! And magic. I want to use your knowledge. I want to use your power. I want to use your _body_!And then I want you to shut your mouth, put your clothes back on and go away until I need something from you again!! Is that a relationship you want to be in? Because I sure as hell don’t!”

Amy stood up, still clutching her live rat, maybe a little too tightly. It squeaked nervously. Then she actually threw it at Willow. She had to duck to avoid the pitifully shrieking little animal. Amy screamed. She screamed the way women scream in horror movies, like someone was literally ripping her apart. She was tearing out her own hair. Willow didn’t know what to do. She had never been so terrified, or horrified or appalled. She had never been the cause of so much pain. It hurt her. She wanted it to stop. “Amy, please!” she begged, on the verge of tears,“calm down!”

Taking a step or two in Amy’s direction, Willow reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. Amy stepped back. She stopped screaming. Her eyes were cold and hard. She spat in Willow’s face and turned pulling her arm away. She snapped her fingers. The fat rat scurried from its hiding place under the coffee table and hopped onto her shoulder. She seemed to grow six inches taller as she straightened her back and strode with dignity out the front door.

Willow wiped the spittle from her cheek, then went into the bathroom to wash her face and hands. Not satisfied, she decided to take a shower. The water was near scalding hot. It didn’t feel good, but it felt right, like just penance. Willow wept torrentially, trying to cleanse herself inside and out. But when the hot water was gone, only her skin felt clean.

****

At dawn, Buffy got up and dressed to go to Willow’s house. She was compelled to stop in the kitchen and wolf down a bowl of cereal. Her stomach didn’t like being empty these days. She managed to get out of the house without having to talk to her mother. Since Joyce had decided to go to Sacramento after all, this meant she didn’t have to face those painfully worried eyes until Monday afternoon.

Buffy felt a stab of guilt and regret. She had tried, she really had, to get to a place where she wouldn’t have to think that way, and in the long run, maybe it would pay off. But right now, it was ‘situation normal’ between Buffy and her mother. Joyce was spun by the things her daughter had told her about her life, and confused by the things she hadn’t. Right now, she didn’t feel that much closer to gaining (or deserving) her mother’s trust than she had been thirty-six hours ago. Because the things that mattered most in her life, the things she needed the most help dealing with, were still the things she couldn’t tell her.

She rang Willow’s doorbell at 6:30. She knew she was probably waking her, but hopefully it would be soon enough to get a little best friend time in, to talk about some personal life things, before she had to deal with Amy... or Willard.

When Willow opened the door, she looked exhausted, but she was also fully dressed. “Hey,” she said glumly, having trouble pulling the corners of her mouth up enough to talk, let alone smile. Actually, she was oddly well dressed, in clothes that flattered her figure instead of hiding the fact that she had one. It must have been some kind of attempt to cheer herself up.

“Hey,” Buffy replied, forcing a smile herself. “So... can I come in?” she asked after a long moment.

Willow shrugged and stepped back out of the doorway. “I’m trying a new policy of never actually saying so.” She explained still sounding like she ought to have a little black rain cloud directly over her head.

“Not a bad idea in this town,” Buffy admitted, stepping across the threshold. “Are we alone? Can we talk?”

“Yeah,” Willow said bleakly, walking back to sit down in one of the two armchairs. “All alone.”Something about the way she said it worried Buffy more than a little.

“Is your mom... out of town?” Buffy asked apprehensively, not sure what she was apprehensive about.

“No,” said Willow, her voice and expression completely flat now. “She’s asleep. She doesn’t count.”

“But she could still wake up and overhear us,” Buffy tried to point out.

“She won’t” said Willow with the certainty of an Apocalyptic prophet. Buffy shivered, trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling that ‘asleep’ might be a broad enough term to encompass say, ‘hacked up and buried under the floorboards’ for example, which actually, would have explained the sudden change in guest policy.

“Willow,” she said seriously, looking her in the eyes, “are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she tried to reassure her, forcing her voice into a marginally lighter, more casually unhappy tone. “I’ll be fine. I just... had a rough night last night.”

“Trouble with Oz?” Buffy guessed.

Willow laughed brittlely, “Not yet,” she said, “I haven’t seen him since Wednesday. No, I guess I sort of... broke up with Amy last night—or as much as you can break up with someone you never agreed to go out with in the first place—and she completely freaked out on me, I mean screaming and throwing things....It was like a nightmare.”Buffy shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t know which was weirder, hearing Willow talk about girl troubles or feeling like she wanted to side with Amy. For an instant she imagined what Giles must have thought of the scene in the library yesterday. Of course, she tried to reason with herself, the situations were not _that_ similar. Besides, Willow was her best friend and Amy was an evil witch.

“Oh no!” said Buffy, suddenly horrified.

“Yeah,” said Willow, misunderstanding, “but at least it’s over, which believe me, is better for everybody. I kind of just want to forget it ever happened.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Buffy, “it’s just... don’t hate me for saying this... but I kind of wish you could have... gotten along with her until Monday. I mean, I guess we have a whole year to figure out how to deal with this ghost, but I wanted her to try that spell, the one to find Angel.”

“Buffy,” Willow said dryly, “I love you and everything, but there _are_ limits to what even I’m willing to do to help you.” Shaking her head, she added, “Giles was right, we should never have done that spell in the first place. Some things are just too...basic.”

“Yeah,” Buffy agreed glumly, “I guess, we just have to get used to working without magic again.”

“Oh, I don’t know about _that_ ,” said Willow, actually brightening a little, “I mean, I’m actually kind of good at this stuff, at least Amy thought so. I could try the spell if you want.”

“Really?” asked Buffy hopefully, “that would be great!”

“I need something of his,” Willow said. Buffy pulled the ring from her pocket, still dangling its broken chain and placed it in Willow’s hand. “Perfect!” Willow said, “although, for future reference, never give a witch anything with your blood on it. It’s a part of you. That’s very powerful in magic.”

****

Spike lay a long while holding Drusilla in his arms. She’d finally put Angel in his own bed for once. For once, they had shared a few hours of bliss, just like in the old days. ‘Soon, he thought, ‘soon my love, it will be like this every day, forever.’ He released her with a small kiss on the forehead and stood up. “I think I’d better go inspect the troops,” he said, “keep up morale and all that.”

Spike whistled happily as he strolled down the tunnel, feeling pleased with himself. After all, he had just conned thirty vampires into joining an army that didn’t exist until they’d joined it. Thirty vampires who owed their loyalty to him and not to Angel. Now the illusion was becoming reality, taking on mass and form. Soon they would be fifty, a hundred, more. Not that he had had any notion of how, exactly, he planned to use his army against the Slayer when he was recruiting them. But Spike knew a once in a lifetime opportunity when he saw one. It was like the old saying went, ‘act and the reason for doing so will become clear.’

From the sheer numbers of recruits, and from the need to maintain the illusion of another twenty or so vampires encamped at ‘headquarters’ in the Church, a plan had suggested itself. With Edwards commanding ‘half’ of the main force in the abandoned pump station just below and south of Willy’s and two groups of sentries stationed at the mausoleum entrance and at the junction with the main electrical tunnel, they were now defended in every direction except from the school itself. Buffy would have to attack along the rout of his choosing. At first she would have a free hand. It would take fifteen minutes for the first troops to arrive. Time enough for her to stop the ritual and/or kill Angel.

He needn’t even arouse Dru’s suspicions by trying to vacate. All they had to do was to hold her off, defend themselves for a few minutes and then, bam! The trap would spring shut. His army would rush together. There would be confusion, casualties. And when the dust settled the survivors would be a hardened force under his command. Angel and the Slayer would be dead. Drusilla would be his!

Hell he might actually burn down Sunnydale High just for the sheer hell of it, just to celebrate. Maybe he _would_ take over Sunnydale, drive that cocky human Mayor to his knees, show him his place in the food chain. And when he came crawling to Spike, begging for his restraint, his protection, the Master would be in a position to be magnanimous. Let the humans run their little town, just as long as they paid plenty of tribute.

This was what had been missing from his unlife: war! A real war, organized violence, slaughter and strategy, force and cunning, blood and politics. Sod love. Sod magic. Sod survival. This was what he was cut out for, death and glory. Tonight would be another night of opportunity. In a few short hours, the sun would set and the moon would rise. And all the boys and girls would gather. All except the Slayer and the witch, who had been bad children and were not to be seen or heard in public. Spike would be ready. He was a warrior. He was a General. And if the tide rolled his way, in a few days, a few weeks, he would be a King.

 ****

Buffy, kicked open the last closet in the condemned fraternity house, then kicked it shut again, splitting the wood. Her frustration unsatisfied, she ripped the crazy wall paper of art posters from the walls, tearing it apart a fistful at a time. The map showed six purple dots. They had been here yesterday. They had been here for years. The signs of habitation were long standing. Clothes, books, jewelry, C.D.; all were piled up like a dragon’s treasure trove. But no vampires. There had to be a hundred posters here, more, each one representing the loss of a human life. And here she had thought she was doing such a great job.

Buffy sat down in a huge, overstuffed armchair and pulled a plastic wrapped paper cone of cotton candy from a huge rack on the adjacent wall. It was stiff, even for cotton candy. She threw it down on the coffee table. Only two out of two dozen single and coupled vampires she’d tried to pay a visit today had been home. On nests, she was O for three. Well at least she guessed she’d given them a good scare at last. Which probably only meant they’d all sleep underground from now on where she couldn’t use the daylight to her advantage. Back to trolling the sewers and hanging out in cemeteries. No more day shift at the slaughter house for Buffy.

Oh well. She guessed it was about time she called it a day and got back over to Willow’s to see how the spell was going. If Angel, really was alive and concentrating his forces, they had to be underground somewhere. Nothing on her map put more than a half a dozen vamps in any one place yesterday morning, above or below ground, so either they hadn’t built any strength back up since the flame fest at the cemetery, or they weren’t all sleeping in one place. Either way, if she could locate Angel, she should be able to put together a strategy and enough fire power to take him out and any vamps who tried to get in her way.

****

Willard held Amy in his arms, her beautiful body curled against his chest, listening to her slow, rhythmic breathing. He brushed the hair back from her angelic face, gently rubbed the smoothness of her cheek and wondered if it would be so terrible if he just shot himself. He still wasn’t in love with her, but he was in something with her. Something deep and terrible that tugged him down by the weakest places in his heart.

The doorbell rang. History repeating itself, sort of. This time he was grateful as well as humiliated. He didn’t want anyone, especially Buffy, to see him as he was, to see that he had given in to her, let her take him over, again. But he also didn’t want to be alone, with her or with his thoughts. He grabbed some jeans and a t-shirt, and headed down stairs, dressing as he went. He wished he had something less attractive to put on, something even more nondescript. Something that would hide his body. He opened the door. Buffy was predictably shocked to see him. “Wil?” She said apprehensively, “what’s going on? Why are you... Willard?”

Willard let out a horsey sigh, “I wish I knew,” he said bleakly. “I think I really kind of hate her. I know she’s terrible for me. I _despise_ who I am when I’m with her. But, when she knocks on the door, I sort of can’t help but let her in.”

“Wil,” said Buffy worriedly, “that doesn’t make any sense.”

“She makes her own kind of sense, I guess,” he said with a wan smile. “And this way we can still do the ghost thing on Monday. Anyway, come in the kitchen, I don’t want to wake her.”

Buffy obliged. She sat down at the table, looking more worried than ever. “So...” she said, “did you get a chance...” Her eyes fell on a strange looking little clay dish with runes cut all around the sides. There was a man’s safety razor lying in the center of it, the blade choked with tiny hairs.

“It’s Mr. Engels, the Prosecutor’s, Willow explained. “Peace offering from Amy. Blood and hair,” she added when Buffy continued to look puzzled.

“So you’re what, cursing people now?” Buffy asked, with a little bit more moral skepticism that Willard thought she was really entitled to under the circumstances.

“Not _cursing_ ,” he clarified, a touch defensively. “Just... influencing. With any luck, we should be able to get him to drop the charges.”

“I guess that’s a good,” said Buffy, still looking uncomfortable.

“Well it beats the heck out of getting convicted of a felony,”Willard pointed out reasonably. Buffy didn’t seem quite sure that this was true, but she let the matter drop.

“So,” she said, “any news on Angel?”

“Plenty,” Willard assured her. “I had to practically melt the ring down to get it, there was so much interference. And no wonder. Buffy, they’re at the Hellmouth.”

“Under the school?” Buffy asked, shocked.

“In the old Church,” Willard confirmed, “near as I can figure.”

“But what would vampires be doing in a church?” She wondered aloud. “I mean the Master was stuck there, but as soon as he was out of the picture, the whole crew cleared out for the factory.”

Willard shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t even really know if they’re staying there. He could have gone back for something the Master left there, I guess. All I know for sure is Angel was there when I looked, which was about one o’clock.” He looked at the clock, “about two hours ago.”

Buffy bit her lip. She was tempted to go look now, but if he really had just gone back to the Church to get something or do something, he was probably gone, and if he was camped out there with a dozen vampires, or a hundred, they were probably sitting up waiting to kill her. “Is there any way to tell how many vamps he has with him?”she asked.

Willard shook his head, “The map thing doesn’t work that close to the Hellmouth. We’d have to know who we were looking for.”

Buffy sighed. “So let’s operate on the assumption that they are living there. Why? They must be up to something. Some kind of unholy ritual, or maybe just staking out the school, something.”

“So what should we do?” Willard asked.

“I’m thinking I’ll wait ‘til after dark,” Buffy mused. “That way at least some of them will be out hunting. Hopefully, I can go down and get a look at what they’re up to, or maybe slay whoever’s home, then wait around and see if I can catch the rest of them coming back to the nest one or two at a time.”

“That sounds like a pretty solid plan,” Willard agreed. Then he seemed to have a tempting thought. “Do you suppose you might need any help?” He asked hopefully, “Magic or something? Because, see, we—me and Amy—we’re supposed to go to this dance tonight... But if you, you know needed our help—”

“Willard, dear,” said Amy nasty-sweet coming through the archway from the living room, “Buffy doesn’t need our help to fight vampires. She’s the Slayer. That’s what she does.”

“Hi, Amy,” Buffy said, smiling thinly. "Been listening long?”

“Long enough,” she replied coolly, “to know that you’ve gotten what you came for.”

“Sometimes,” Buffy explained sarcastically, “people hang around just to talk to someone, even when they don’t actually want something from them. It’s called being friends.”

Amy’s eyes narrowed hatefully. “And some times,” she replied, “people hang around just to stick their noses in other people’s business. It’s called being a—”

“Whoa, now, guys...” said Willard, looking nervously from one girl to the other. Buffy was getting to her feet. He stepped between them.

“—a self-righteous bitch!” Amy concluded.

Willard whimpered miserably. His hands were up now, theoretically positioned to hold the girls apart, except that if his hands had made contact with the parts of them that were coming towards him, he’d be the one most likely to get a broken arm. “Come on now guys,” he whined, putting both of his hands on Amy’s shoulders and looking back desperately over his own shoulder at Buffy.

“You know what, Amy?” Buffy declared hotly. “I’ve taken just about enough crap from you for one week!” Her head actually rolled. This was not a good thing.

“What are you going to do about it?” Amy demanded. Willard’s heart sank. That was so the wrong question.

“I thought I might start by kicking you ass,” Buffy retorted.

“Is that what you thought?” Amy demanded, trying to push Willard out of the way. He held on.

“Damn it Buffy,” he said, “back off.”

“You’re taking her side?” Buffy demanded.

“No,” he shouted, “you’re the one I think I can reason with! Alright, so Amy’s a witch, she’s still a regular human person. You can’t hit her. And anyway, this is between us.”Buffy let out a small noise of frustration and rolled her eyes. Technically Willard was right.

“The hell it is!” declared Amy. “Goddess Hecate—” Willard, clamped his hand over her mouth. Forcing his way past his girlish squeamishness, he wrapped his other arm around her, holding both of her arms down. She was struggling, crying, kicking and clawing at him.

“Just go!” he told Buffy bitterly, “I don’t need a Vampire Slayer to protect me from my damned girlfriend.”Buffy hesitated a moment, then turned and left, looking both worried and abashed. Willard held Amy until she stopped struggling. “Trust me,” he said, as he released her, both of them breathing hard, “you don’t want to fight Buffy.”

“Why can’t she mind her own business?” Amy seethed.

“Maybe because _you_ told the whole school every last detail of her business?” Willard suggested.

“I think you have your cause and effect the wrong way round,” Amy grumbled.

“Everything about me is the wrong way round,”said Willard sourly. “I thought that was the way you liked it.”

“You’re just not looking at things the right way,” Amy pouted. “Why can’t we just relax and enjoy ourselves and quit worrying about what’s right and wrong.”

“Because life, doesn’t work that way,” said Willard exasperated. “Other people are affected by our actions. We’re affected by them. Amy, can’t you see, this whole weird thing between us is making us both miserable.”

“Well it wouldn’t if you’d just quit fighting it,” she argued, stepping into Willard’s bubble, putting her hands on his shoulders.

With difficulty, he turned away, shrugging her off. “Please... not right now,” he begged, “Let’s... just finish this spell, okay?”

“As you wish,” said Amy with doleful significance. She meant it too. Willard felt terrible, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t love her. She was making it hard to like her even. Using magic to attack Buffy! Was she out of her mind? Her own mother had been more or less killed for exactly that. And if she would do that to Buffy, what might she do to Willow, or Oz?

Willard wondered if there were any non-life-threatening ways to neutralize a witch, to keep her from using her powers, or at least, using them for evil. Of course, breaking the free will of a public official to stop him from enforcing the law could technically qualify as using power for evil... But, well, there were circumstances. Which admittedly were mostly Buffy and Giles’ fault. So,he could kind of see where Amy was coming from, which was more or less the same as where Buffy was coming from, only from the opposite direction. It was from somewhere in the vicinity to treating Willow like she didn’t have sense enough to take care of herself.

Of course, Willard thought, looking back on his/her life over the past couple of weeks, maybe they had a point. He needed something or someone to keep him on an even keel. ‘Parents,’ said a small, definite voice, but that ship had sailed. Ready or not, it was time to grow up, time to take care of himself, time to be who he knew _she_ was and do what he knew was right. Starting tomorrow. Or after the exorcism on Monday anyway. Or after court next month at the very latest. Or at least, when Willow turned eighteen, and finished her probation.

****

Buffy walked three quarters of the way from Willow’s to Giles’ house before she thought to ask herself where she was going or why she was going there. She could have said she was going to report on what she had learned about Angel, or on her slaying activities of the last day and a half. She could have said she was going to seek his advice about her upcoming confrontation or the shifting whereabouts of the vampire population.

But she wasn’t. She needed to see him. Her heart ached. She tried to steel herself to turn and go another way. To the Gallery perhaps. Maybe there were some crates that needed moved, or opened, or smashed into a million bits. Her feet kept walking towards Giles. Well, and after all, she reasoned, he was still her Watcher, and he did need to hear about her slaying activities. And it wouldn’t hurt to give him a heads up on what was going on with Amy in case in he needed to do a repeat performance of the spell he’d done on her mother at some point in the near future.

Buffy rang the doorbell. There was no immediate response. She turned the knob. It was unlocked. She poked her head inside and was on the point of calling out to him when she heard his voice coming from the kitchen. He was deep in a tense conversation with an unheard person, on the phone, obviously. “Well, that’s what I was hoping you could tell me.... I don’t know where it comes from originally.... From the journal of an evil witch actually, that’s one of the things that concerns me about it.... Well it’s supposed to be a binding spell for a poltergeist, but the energies involved don’t seem to add up to that. It’s all about transference by sympathetic action.... Well yes, presumably, but to where? That’s the question.”

Buffy waited in the living room, trying to be patient. He was obviously in the middle of very important ghost related activities, and technically, she was in the opposite of a hurry, waiting for the sun to set and the moon to rise. She perched on the arm of the couch and started fiddling with the yo-yo she kept in her purse.“I can’t ask her.” Giles was saying,“Buffy and I... vanquished her about a year ago.... The daughter of the witch, actually.... Well their relationship was complex at best, awful more realistically.... not as far as I can throw her....Well it takes more than knowledge to perform powerful magic; it takes... talent, certainly more than I can claim.

“If that’s the soonest you can get to it, I suppose it will have to do.... Oh, well, tonight is a concern, but history suggests that if we can keep the building empty until sunrise, we’ll have at least a year to find a solution before it flares up again.... Yes, please let me know as soon as you have any information.”He hung up the receiver and walked into his living room to find Buffy, the woman he loved, perched on the arm of his couch, legs crossed so as to make her much to short skirt that much shorter, popping her gum and bouncing a yo-yo like a twelve-year-old child.

“Hello, Buffy,” he said tiredly, struggling not to be annoyed with her. After all, it wasn’t as though she were _trying_ to make him feel guilty and confused and ashamed of himself. She was just... an adolescent girl.

“Fine thanks,” she said sarcastically, putting her yo-yo down on the coffee table so that she could fold her arms and glare at him, “how are you?”

Marvelous. It was going to be one of those conversations. He took his glasses off and rubbed his temples. “How’s that... erm map working out for you?” he asked.

“So well it’s putting itself out of business,” she said a little more civilly.

“Come again?” he said, sliding his glasses back on his face.

Too easy. “I killed seventeen vamps yesterday, now every nest in Sunnydale has headed for the hills, or tunnels more like, along with most of the general population. I made about twenty house calls today and only got two vamps.”

“Well, jolly good!” he said with real enthusiasm. “Ms. Madison is proving to be quite an asset after all.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Buffy warily. “She tried to turn me into a rat again about half an hour ago.”

“Good lord, Buffy are you alright?” Suddenly, without knowing how they’d gotten there, he was holding both her hands in his. They both blushed. The concern in his eyes and the startled hope in hers both melted to sorrow. He withdrew his hands but remained standing awkwardly in front of her.

“Yeah,” she said in a small voice, “right as rain. I just don’t think we should ask her to do too much magic for us,” she added, struggling for a businesslike tone. “We can’t trust her.”

“No,” Giles agreed grimly, his own voice weighted down by more emotion than their troubles with Amy could explain, “evidently not.”

“Well, from what you were saying in there,” she observed, “it sounds like the whole ghost clearance deal is a no go for now anyway. Hopefully we’ll be able to work something out before next year.”

“Yes,” Giles agreed, “I have a spiritualist friend of mine doing a little research. He should get back to us within a few weeks. Just as long as no one goes near the school tonight, everything should be fine.”

Buffy made a familiar face. Giles narrowed his eyes. “Alright” he said, “out with it.”

“I was kind of planning to go to the Hellmouth later,” she said, “to kill Angel.”

“What?” Giles asked completely puzzled, filled with a muddle of emotions.

“Willow located him there this afternoon,” Buffy explained. “She couldn’t get a fix on their numbers though, so I’m waiting until after dark. Hopefully he’ll either send his minions out to hunt while he holds down the fort, or they’ll split up and I’ll catch him coming back alone.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea atall,” Giles warned. “Especially considering your... history with Angel. This spirit, this James, is bound to be disturbed. There’s no telling what he might do. No, I suggest you wait until tomorrow night at least.”

Buffy knew what he was saying made perfect sense. As usual. She was more than usually annoyed by the fact. “I don’t know,” she tried to argue. “Information can go stale pretty quickly.”

“If you set foot in that school you’re going to get shot,” said Giles crossly.

“So I won’t go through the school,”Buffy rejoined, “God, why do you have to act like I’m mentally challenged or something! I’ll go in through the tunnel from the cemetery.”

“No,” Giles insisted. “You can’t, it’s too dangerous.”

“So as my Watcher, you forbid it?” Buffy said, mock cheerfully. “Oh goody, everything’s back to normal(!)”

Giles let out an exasperated exhalation, sat down on the couch and folded his arms. “That’s bloody brilliant,” he said, “Go get yourself killed because you’re angry with me.”

She sighed hopping down from the couch arm to sit next to him. “You can’t be insightful and sarcastic,” she said glumly, “It’s cheating.”

“What about deeply concerned for your safety,” he said warmly, half apologetically, “I’m I still allowed to be that?”

“Maybe,” said Buffy, mock grudgingly, “I have to look it up the Spurned Lover’s Handbook.”

Giles smiled sadly. “Nothing about us has ever been by the book,” he said affectionately.

“And never will be,” said Buffy, seriously, leaning towards him, laying her hand on his knee. Sparks of desire shot from her fingertips and up his thigh. He looked down into her drowning eyes. He picked up her hand only intending to move it, but laced his fingers through hers and held it instead. She leaned closer, wanting him to kiss her.

Hanging his head, he released her hand and turned away. She deserved better than his daily wavering. She deserved certainty. She deserved an honest relationship with someone who could put her first without reservation, who could be happy and proud to be hers and to say so publicly. He was still far from certain that he could truly offer her that.“You know what?” said Buffy, getting to her feet with a faltering smile, “I should go... I mean there’s really... I have to,” she was blinking back tears now. “I should go.”

“Buffy,” he said, his voice between a cry for help and an exhortation. But he was hardly in a position to say ‘don’t go.’ “Please say in tonight,” he said. Buffy nodded as she hurried out the door. Giles felt less than fully reassured. He got up and poured himself a stiff drink. ‘Malt does more than Milton can...’he thought, grimly amused. Neither seemed to help much lately. ‘So, the question is, what are you going to do about it?’

****

“You have to dress better than that,” said Cordelia matter-of-factly.

“The announcements said _semi_ -formal,” Xander pointed out.

“That means no tuxes,” Cordelia clarified. “You still have to wear a jacket and tie.”

“Well what’s this then?” Xander asked, indicating his sort-of-looks-like-silk shirt and black slacks.

“Semi-casual,” Cordelia explained patiently. “Let’s have a look in your closet.” She said, “I’m sure we can find something... or not. What size does your dad wear?”

“Giant clown pants,” said Xander.

Cordelia sighed. “You’re not taking this seriously,” she accused. “This is the third most important social event of the spring semester. _And_ , it’s the first social event of the Xander-Harris-might-potentially-be-marginally-cool era, so get with the program. Do you even own a tie?”

“Do cool people actually wear ties?” Xander asked skeptically.

“They do if the announcements say ‘semi-formal,’” Cordelia insisted. “Unless they’re beyond cool, and you’re so not ready for that.” She thought a moment. “You might be close enough to my dad’s size to get away with wearing one of his jackets. Which won’t put you on the cover of GQ, but it should do for Sunnydale. He has great ties too, I buy them myself.”

“Who knew you were such a doting daughter?” Xander laughed.

“Well I can’t have him embarrassing the family with his taste,” Cordelia replied. She helped him gather up every item of clothing that had any potential to be part of a semi-formal ensemble and they headed for the car.

“Now the plan is grandly simple,” Cordelia reiterated, as she drove him to her house, “All you have to do is show up, stay exactly two hours, talk to everybody I introduce you to and not be a dork. Think you can handle it?”

“Yeth, mythreth,” said Xander, doing the best hunchback he could while seated in a car.

“The opposite of that,” Cordelia explained coolly. “Be witty but not goofy. Cheerful but not effusive. Polite by not deferential. No references to science fiction, fantasy or comic book characters or situations of any kind. That includes both Superman and Spiderman, and in Valen’s name, don’t mention Babylon 5. Avoid sarcasm or anything that could be an insult to anyone. Leave that to me. You don’t know enough about these people to know who cares who else you insult.”

“I go to school with them every day,” Xander pointed out.

“No,” Cordelia corrected, “you go to school the same place as them, that’s not the same thing.”

“Okay, now this is starting to feel like the first meeting of the We Hate Xander Club.”

“No,” said Cordelia with patience and affection, “This is the We Love Xander Club, the We Want Xander to Succeed in Life Club, and that’s why I’m telling it like it is. ‘Cool’ is not a high school thing Xander. Getting on the inside of things, making the right connections, being where you need to be and knowing who you need to know to get things done the way you want them, these are real life skills. And I’m going to show you how it’s done.”

“Yay?” said Xander, doubtfully.

Cordelia smiled and kissed him on the lips. “You’ll thank me later.”

“So,” he recapped, “I’m going to be seen but not heard and you’re going to insult Harmony to all the right people. Is there anything else to your plan Ms. Machiavelli?”

Cordelia laughed. “I’m not going to insult Harmony,” she said smiling cruelly. “I have a much, much better plan. It’ll completely destroy her.”

“You’re going to lure her into the back of a truck by leaving a trail of jewelry and cosmetics, then drive her across the border and sell her to a sleazy night club owner named Pedro?”

“Much, much worse,” said Cordelia. “I’m going to be _nice_ to her.”

**** 

“Hair jell?” said Willard doubtfully, “Do I seem like a hair jell kind of a person?”Amy seemed to consider the matter seriously. She rubbed a little of the sticky viscous fluid between her fingers experimentally.

“Let’s just try it,” she said, running her fingers through his hair and tussling it about.

‘Just relax,’ Willard tried to tell himself. He should try to _enjoy_ the way her fingers made his scalp tingle. God only knew how long he’d be paying for it.

Amy appraised her work, “I come down on the side of hair jell.” She concluded authoritatively. “Otherwise, it just hangs there. It’s too long.”

“Why isn’t it longer,” Willard wondered, “I mean Willow has hair down to her... down to here.”

Amy laughed at his discomfort. “Maybe it spreads out over the whole surface area,” she suggested, pulling a curly red chest hair that was sticking up over his unbuttoned collar.

“Ow!” Willard said, annoyed. He buttoned his collar and pulled his tie in place over it. Amy was annoyed right back but she didn’t say anything. She looked amazingly hot in her strappy-but-otherwise-backless red dress and her black hose, which you could see for a fact were not stockings because the skirt was just way too short for that. Her face, if you happened to look at her face, looked maybe just a little too young, a little too innocent to pull off what she was wearing. In Willard’s book, that counted as ironic. Amy was sixteen going on diabolical. She was sin incarnate. He despised her, and he wanted her. She was hot as the fires of Hell.

He pulled her to him feeling like it was happening the other way round. “Again?” she asked with incredulous delight. She tossed her head back and laughed. Willard knew the joke was on him, but he didn’t care. He threw her down on the bed, and she pulled him down after her. The dress hardly needed to be raised. She kept it on the whole time he was making love to her: a quick, but passionate embrace, not much more than a matter of a few strokes, deep and fast. He came inside of her in a handful of minutes, feeling as much relief as ecstasy, glad to have the matter concluded.

“Tell me you’re mine,” Amy demanded silkily, savagely.

‘I’m not,’ Willard thought desperately. ‘Please, God, I’m not!’ “I’m yours,” he heard himself saying, “I’m yours. You know I am.”

****

Afternoon slipped into evening, and still she didn’t come. Just like she hadn’t come yesterday. Oz’s heart ached. He couldn’t think of anything terrible enough to be the reason why, the thing that would keep her away. The memory of a scent intruded on his consciousness. He pushed it away. There was no other guy. That wasn’t Willow’s style. More likely her mother was keeping her away. She’d probably heard rumors by now of how the incident at the school really went down, or how it had looked from the outside anyway.

He just wished she’d call. He tried calling her. The machine picked up. He left a message. He looked up at the ceiling, missing her, wondering if she was okay, trying not to wonder about things he ought to know for certain. There was a cold, gnawing empty something in his heart. He knew there was something he didn’t know.

****

“I’ll drive,” Willard said, snatching the keys from the rack under the tips of Amy’s outstretched fingers.

Amy shrugged indifferently. “Suit yourself,” she said. Somehow she managed to make Willard feel like an ass without censuring him at all. He threw her the keys. She caught them with a mean little smile. He followed her out to the garage and got in on the passenger side.

They arrived at the Bronze right at eight, one of maybe two dozen couples not fashionable enough to be late. Surprisingly, this number also included Harmony Kendall, looking severe and out of place in a black silk sheath dress, dramatic up-do and heavy evening makeup, Mitch McNaughton of all people on her arm, as far under dressed as she was over. Harmony perched at a tall table along one side of the dance floor, with a pained smile. It’s hard to be witty and elegant, Willard guessed, when there’s no one in the room you’re actually willing to talk to. Mitch grinned and whispered something in her ear. She gave him a withering look. He rolled his eyes and headed for the punch bowl. Looking around, thinking no one was watching, he produced a flask from beneath his coat.

“Hey!” Willard hissed in Amy’s ear. “He’s spiking the punch!”

“Well let’s hope he gives it a good dose,” Amy grinned, “this party could use a boost. In fact, why don’t you get us a cup?”

Willard was aghast. “You don’t even know what’s in it!”

Amy laughed, perching at another high round table. “Don’t start regressing on me now,” she said. “It’s just Mitch. He’s not creative enough to think of anything better than alcohol.”

Defeated, Willard headed for the punch bowl. Mitch seemed in no hurry to get back to his date. Instead, he propped back on his elbows against the drinks table, openly looking up Amy’s skirt.

“It’s not worth it.” Willard informed him crossly.

Mitch shrugged. “I’ll trade you,” he said almost seriously.

Willard laughed. “Think I’ll stick with the devil I know,” he said dryly.

“At least she puts out,” Mitch said with a leer.

“Hey!” said Willard hotly, “How would—!” His face flushed as he caught up to what Mitch had actually meant. Mitch was amused and contemptuous. He was also more of a pig than Willard had realized. He almost said so before he remembered that, as a guy, he was subject to getting his ass kicked for saying things like that.

“Excuse me,” he said, embarrassedly, reaching around Mitch to fill two glasses. He had a feeling that even with a liberal dose of liquid cheer it was going to be a long evening.

“Thanks,” said Amy draining her glass as soon as he handed it to her. Willard did the same. Almost immediately he began to feel a little better. Amy gave him her sweetest, most radiant smile, the one (s)he had loved since the sixth grade. “Let’s dance,” she said warmly. They danced. For a few minutes, he actually relaxed and let himself enjoy her company.

Couples were filing in constantly now. Cordelia made her entrance at 8:30 on the dot. It was the moment Harmony had obviously been waiting for, but she wasn’t prepared. Even the few cronies she had managed to gather around her turned and murmured their stunned, excited approval. Cordelia’s dress was a delicate blue overlaid with silver and white floral brocade. It was softer than her usual look, but it suited her coloring perfectly. She was radiant. She looked happy. She looked _kind_. But the center piece of the outfit was what she wore on her arm, a perfectly groomed Xander Harris, expertly clad in the right balance of silver and black. His boyish smile was the perfect fit to the reluctant hero.

Fixing her own smile back in place, Harmony dragged Mitch over to greet her. He looked angry and uncomfortable. A few tense words seemed to pass between them, but Cordelia maintained her radiance. After a moment, she tossed off a light comment that Willard couldn’t quite hear from where he was standing. Xander looked a little nervous, but everyone around them laughed. Harmony was livid. She snapped and snarled at Cordelia in a way that was the opposite of cool. Mortified, Mitch tried to drag her away. “Whose side are you on anyway?!” Harmony demanded loudly, slapping him out of her way. With an exasperated snort, he turned and left.

Cordelia pronounced a word or two, still smiling warmly. Everyone laughed again. Harmony looked at once murderous and on the verge of tears. Xander looked dazed. Cordelia spoke softly, to her old friend, trying to lay a hand on her arm, looking for all the world like the sincere bearer of an olive branch. Harmony pushed her away, stomping her feet like an angry toddler. She turned and barked at her remaining friends to join her in a dramatic exit. Only one or two did so.

Willard watched the drama with the strange feeling that he was seeing an event almost as momentous as the toppling of the Berlin Wall. The feeling only increased as the evening went on. Hostilities apparently concluded, Cordelia worked the crowd with poise and charm. Xander kept his remarks to a minimum, smiling and laughing off complements. There was a sense of relief in the air. Although the sparkling couple spent most of their radiance on the sports and fashion set, they were warm and polite to everyone. It seemed to be contagious. Willard actually heard Hogan Martin, basketball demi-god, exchange a dozen friendly word with professional outcaste Freddy Ivers. It was like a velvet revolution, the fall of Meangirlism at Sunnydale High. The Tiffany faction hadn’t even been there to fire a shot.

“Who are _they_ ,” Willard whispered to Amy, “and where are Xander and Cordelia?”

Amy smiled pretty warmly herself. “People can surprise you,” she said. “Sometimes they mean better than you think they do.” Just when Willard was feeling that he might have judged Amy a little too harshly, blamed her for his own confusion without just cause, she spoiled it by adding. “You do realize of course, they’re all congratulating him for putting your boyfriend in the hospital.”

****

“You can’t go in there,” Harmony sneered contemptuously at the bleached blond creature that was advancing across the parking lot towards her. “It’s self-righteous amateur bitch night. Fat, enormous old cow’s night is tomorrow.”

“I don’t do high school parties,” Sunday scoffed. In one sudden motion she drew back her arm and punched Harmony in the face. The girl crumpled to the pavement. “And they’re called muscles, bitch. Guys, put her in the van with the others.”

“Dude!” said Dennis with unseemly enthusiasm, “I call sort on this one!”

Sunday rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said, “but no screwing around. I don’t have time for this crap.”

“Does he even know what he’s looking for?” Miranda asked doubtfully.

“Honestly, I could give a crap,” said Sunday.

“But Mr. Edward’s says the ritual—” Miranda began with earnest stupidity.

“There is no ‘ritual’, lame brain,” Sunday explained impatiently.

Miranda looked like a chipmunk trying to solve a quadratic equation in its head. “Then what are all the people at headquarters doing?” she asked with utter sincerity.

“You mean the two-dozen highly trained and disciplined fighters who can’t come out to fight and who only the two bosses and their girlfriends have ever seen?” Sunday asked, her voice dripping with scorn. “The ones commanded by a legendary, formerly thought to be dead, enemy of the Slayer, who lives in a Church so nobody will have the nerve to go see him, yet _Spike_ is somehow _his_ boss?”

“Yeah,” said Miranda nodding vigorously, doe eyes wide with innocent credulity, “Those guys. What are they doing if there’s no ritual?”

“Making Spike a new suit of clothes entirely out of the invisible essence of virginity,” said Sunday dryly. Miranda looked like she was beginning to suspect she was missing something. “There’s no army,” she clarified finally, “or there wasn’t until last night anyway. It’s just the four of them.”

“Then how come we’re working for them?” Miranda asked.

“We’re not,” Sunday explained coolly.

“Yeah we are. They sent—”

Suddenly, a monstrous demon roared to life, grabbing Miranda by the shoulders in its taloned hands. “WE’RE NOT!” Sunday growled. With a toss of her head, she regained her human visage, and with it her air of cool self-possession.“Get this straight. You don’t work for anybody but me. _I_ don’t work for anybody but me. But this Slayer is a problem. Someone has a plan for a smackdown, I’m in. I’m not going to waste time bitching about who’s on top. It’s time for some frickin’ solidarity.”

 


	13. Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Night of The Sadie Hawkins Dance will change everything between Buffy and Giles forever. They aren't the only ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Conclusion of Part II: What We Make

♫One night love affair, trying to make like we don’t care—♪

. ♫feels like it’s raining all over the world—♪

. . ♫I believed in your confusion, so completely torn—♪

. . . ♫Always the same, it’s just a shame—♪

. . . . ♫I think I’d rather die and go to Hell and face the devil—♪

Buffy let the dial go around one more time. The Radio that was supposed to be keeping her company was giving her a little more emotional feedback than she wanted in her solitude.

♫things that I want to say, you know I like my girls a little bit older—♪

. ♫if your hopes should pass away, simply pretend—♪

. . ♫It’s easier to believe in this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness—♪

. . . ♫But I love you more than I wanted to—♪

. . . . ♫makes you wonder who’s cheatin’ who—♪

But the silence that followed the sound of her clicking it off was hard to take. The house felt big and empty with her mother gone. She was agitated, restless. She turned on the TV.

****

There was no need to keep looking over the spell. He had better trained eyes prepared to look into it. He had other work he could be doing. But something about it bothered him. Something about it was familiar, or at least it reminded him of something else. He put his hand to the crystal at his throat once again, feeling as though it had something to do with Jenny. But it was Deirdre Page’s voice that he heard in the malleable ear of his memory. _“I’ve looked through absolutely everything I can get my hands on.” She seemed to have said.“There’s nothing specific to this sort of demon. I did find a spell for exercising all sorts of unearthly spirits straight to Hell, but he’s probably too powerful for that.... anyway, to even attempt it, we’d need at least two more girls and we’d have to tell them everything.”_

A horrific possibility lodged itself in Rupert’s mind and would not be shaken lose. A True Exorcism Spell? He had heard of them since, but he had trouble imagining anyone callous enough, reckless enough to have knowingly used one. Except perhaps Katherine Madison. Not that he was at all sure that was what Deirdre had gotten a hold of all those years ago. Nor, for that matter, that the similarities between that spell and this were more than coincidental, even if accurately remembered. He’d never looked at it too closely, since they’d opted for a seemingly more certain if more drastic remedy.

The rational thing to do would of course be to raise the issue with Winthrop. But it was 5:00am in London, and as he had spoken to him less than six hours ago, he could be fairly certain the man was still asleep. He could have waited two or three hours. That _seemed_ to make the most sense. But the cool heaviness at his throat kept Jenny ever present in his thoughts.

Just because James Stanley was responsible for the violent manifestations in the school didn’t mean that Jenny wasn’t also trapped there. Statistically, most hauntings were caused by murders and suicides. Adding up the known aggravators: mystical heritage and practice, living and dying in a cycle of vengeance, abuse of the body, his own failed attempt at vengeance on her behalf and... conduct unbecoming to a lover in mourning; Jenny was a fairly likely candidate to have trouble moving on. And if so, a spell that could send her to her eternal damnation was even now in the hands of Amy Madison, a volatile, ill socialized child who had shown herself to be capable of nearly anything. And Amy was even now surrounded by conveniently paired Sunnydale students who might well be inclined to help her rid their school of a dangerous spirit once and for all.

***

“So you play your wits against mine. Me, who commanded armies hundreds of years before you were born—”

      “What my opponent doesn’t seem to understand is the cost to the taxpayer of all these teenage pregnancies—”

             “Of course she killed him. She was banging that other guy—”

                  “Kid, we’ve all got it coming—”

                        “I’d rather have half an hour of wonderful than a whole lifetime of nothing special—”

                               “But what about that not-so-fresh feeling?”

Maybe she’d rather be alone with her thoughts after all, Buffy decided, switching the TV off. But then there was that silence again.

****

Rupert’s need to know that this spell was not what he feared it to be, or at least that it was not being acted upon, grew ever more compelling. He couldn’t wait a day. He couldn’t wait an hour. He had to get to the library. He had to go over everything one more time. He had to protect Jenny.

He gathered up everything he might need or have a use for. The object he’d spent so many hours contemplating after his long conversation with Hal the night before still lay on the desk in his study. Every type of crystal has its own peculiar uses, but this was not exactly what was likely to be called for. Without any real justification, he put it in the breast pocket of his shirt and let it rest against his heart.

****

Surly it couldn’t hurt to go out and patrol, just for a little while, just a quick sweep. Okay, technically, she had told Giles she would stay in, but he had really only meant for her to stay out of the school... mostly. Besides, he was the last person who had any business getting on her case for not doing what she said she’d do.

She almost called him. But he’d just tell her no again. Maybe Angel would be out hunting after all. Maybe she would run in to him. Maybe it would finally be over.

 ****

He took the car, not relishing the idea of a long walk through this God forsaken town at night. He parked on the street three blocks from the school, not wanting to be seen parking on campus in defiance of the police chief’s orders. He could have gone through the side door that led directly into the library, but the front door was fifty yards closer, and he had the keys. He locked it behind him, walking up the main hallway.

He stopped and looked up the stairs. There was something up there, waiting for him, something he needed to do. It might have had something to do with Jenny, but the person who filled his mind’s eye as he began to climb was Owen Thurman.

****

Maybe she’d head for the park. There was no better place to find a random vamp to slay. She and Angel had been on dozens of fruitful patrols there together. And some, admittedly, more pleasurable than fruitful. ‘Don’t think about that,’ she admonished herself angrily, conjuring the elephant, of course: Angel’s lips, Angel’s eyes, Angel’s hands... and Giles’.

He could be over here making love to her right now. He who? She could picture it both ways. If things were different... they wouldn’t be the same.

****

The music room. That was the place Giles needed to be. Something had started there. Something that could have prevented everything that was happening, to Jenny to Buffy to Owen to James. He had to finish it. He had to be the one to do what needed to be done and to accept the consequences.

****

She set out for the park. She should have turned on Weatherly, but she didn’t. Suddenly, Buffy knew with absolute certainly where she needed to be. She didn’t ask herself why. She went there. The front door would be locked, not that any lock could really stop her, but she knew a better way.

****

The moon was shining, through the ground, through the ceiling. Drusilla could see it, growing fatter every day, swelling to give birth to chaos, to pain. And then it would recede would wither away, like her Angel was withered away, until at last she would be ready to give birth to him. “Shine!” she cried, “Shine sweet moon! Bring them scurrying from their hiding places!” Her laughter echoed in the empty chambers of the house of God. The creature called Zanya whimpered in her semi-sleep. Angel was beyond whimpering, but he stirred uneasily in her arms.

Kneeling, she laid him gently on the arrangement of prayer cushions that served as his bed. Never a manger when you need one. She stood slowly. There was something in the air. A vibration, an emotion. She reached out a hand and caught it, smiling. Her smile faded. Her eyes went wide with horror. She fell to her knees, screaming.

_Buffy climbed in through the ground floor window. It resisted her, but she came in anyway, like the tide. She didn’t need an invitation. She used a fist. Or the butt of a gun. She was Law. She was Vengeance. She was Death. She was coming for Angel._

****

Angel was here. It was an absolute certainty. He was waiting for her. They had one last dance to dance. She could hear the music playing. Upstairs. In the music room.

♫ _The moon may be high,♪_

_♫But I can’t see a thing in the sky.♪_

Buffy climbed the stairs. Ignoring the broken crime scene tape that hung from the door frame, she opened the door to the room where her lover waited.

But he wasn’t waiting. Giles was startled to see her. He jerked his head up from the desk, throwing something into the drawer. She glimpsed it without processing what it was. It landed with a heavy clunk. She slammed the drawer shut and looked up into James’s eyes. Her face was streaked with tears.

“I brought you this,” James said nervously, holding out the corsage, holding out his heart.“I knew you’d be here.... I thought I’d bring to dance to you.”

Grace shook her head, smiling a sad smile. “It’s a Sadie Hawkins dance,” she reminded him. “I didn’t invite you.”

“Well here we are anyway,” he pointed out. “The music’s already playing.” He extended his hands to her, his eyes full of desperate longing. “We might as well dance one dance.”Heart pounding, Grace took hold of his hands and let him lead her into an open patch of floor near the record player. One last dance. What did it matter now? What could anything matter now? Here at the mouth of Hell, here at the end of the world?

But she didn’t have a dance left in her. He took her in his arms, and her feet refused to move. She clung to him sobbing, barely able to stand. He clung to her just as fiercely, holding her on her feet. “Please,” he whispered, “please let’s just go back to the way things were before. Nobody else in this damn town understands me. You’re the only one, the only person I can talk to.” He lifted her face gently to his. In a split second he would have kissed her, and she would have lost her resolve.

“No!” she cried, pulling away from him. “I’ve already told you, we’re through. It’s over, just please, please let it be over!”

“Let it be over?” he demanded, “How can I do that? Will you tell me how? You can’t make me disappear just because you say it’s ‘over.’ I still have to be here in this school where you are every day—to be always near you,never with you—I can’t do that. I won’t!”

“I know,” she murmured, “that’s why I’m leaving Sunnydale.” The look in her eyes! Like staring through the windows of a damned soul! “When you wake up in the morning,” she whispered, “I’ll be gone.”

Suddenly James had a horrible feeling he knew what was in that drawer. Her eyes followed his. She tried to lunge into his path, but he was too fast for her. Taking the gun in both hands, he held it before her eyes. “Is this what you mean by ‘leaving town’?” he demanded.

“Of course not!” Grace lied. “I’m... going back to Ohio.”

“Then why do you need a gun?!” James demanded.

“Don’t worry,” Grace assured him, “I was too much of a coward to use it. So I’m leaving on the next bus.”

“But why?” James cried from the blackest part of his heart, from a place of anger and self-pity. “Is being with me really that awful? Am I really a fate worse than death?”

“There’s no way we can ever be together,” Grace tried to explain, “no way people will ever understand, accept it.”

“Is that what this is about?” James couldn’t believe what he was hearing,“What other people think?”

“No... I just... want you to be able to have some kind of a normal life! We can never have that, don’t you see?” Grace struggled to convince him and to keep herself convinced. She couldn’t do this to him. She couldn’t drag him into this morass with her.

“I don’t give a damn about a normal life!” James cried, like a petulant child. “I’m going crazy not seeing you,” he wept. “I think about you every minute.”

Grace felt her heart trying to cave in. “I know,” she said, “but it’s over. It has to be.” She started walking fast towards the exit. To hell with the gun. She had to get out of here before it was too late, before she let him convince her. Maybe she would go back to Ohio and bear her disgrace. Maybe she would walk out into the Ocean and stand on the bottom. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to get away from him. She had to set him free.

“Come back here,” James demanded, following her down the hallway, “We’re not finished yet! You don’t care anymore, is that it?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Grace cried back, just as wounded, just as angry. She was not seventeen. She didn’t have the luxury of being a blind slave to passion, of foolishly believing that things would magically work out. “It doesn’t matter what I _feel_!”

“Then tell me you don’t love me!” James wailed, “Say it!”

“Will that help?” She wondered aloud. “Is that what you need to hear?” God if it could only be that easy to release him! “I don’t, I don’t”she said with as much conviction as she could muster. “Now let me go.”

“No!” James wept, a new bitterness to his voice. A brittle, broken hardness. “A person doesn’t just wake up one day and stop loving somebody!” He leveled the gun at her. “Love is forever!”

Grace stopped breathing for a moment. What she felt was not a desire to live, but a primal dread of death.

“I’m not afraid to use it, I swear!” James informed her with desperate resolve. “If I can’t be with you...” His voice broke with emotion.

“Oh my God!” Grace gasped. In that instant she knew that he could do what he couldn’t bring himself to say. She knew what she had driven him to. She fled in terror from what she had created, from whom she had destroyed.

Nothing left in his heart but rage and pain, James cried out, “Don’t walk away from me, Bitch!” Grace ran blindly, stumbling out onto the balcony. With nowhere else to run she turned to face her pursuer with eyes full of sorrow, of regret. She took a step towards him, then another.“Stop it! Stop it!” James cried, a terrified, overwhelmed child. “Don’t make me!”

Grace tried to think, through her pain, through her terror. He needed her. She had to save him. “Alright... just...” She struggled for reason; she struggled for words, the touchstones of her former life, the tools of her trade. It was Miss Newman and not Grace who said, “You know you don’t want to do this. Let’s both just calm down.”

James was more than silent. He was stricken dumb. He was unmade. She’d erased him. He was not a man. He was nothing.

“Now give me the gun,” she gently ordered, kindly scolded.

“Don’t do that damn it!” he cried out into the empty space where the woman who loved him had been, “Don’t talk to me like I’m some stupid k—!”

The Universe exploded, leaving him deaf. He saw rather than heard his name on her lips. He looked into her eyes and saw Grace, his Grace... extinguished. He called her name but she was gone. Yet his heart continued to pound, his breath came and went in ragged sobs, life cruelly continued to pulse through his veins.

Suddenly, Giles was standing with his back the balcony railing, holding Drusilla’s crumpled body in his arms. He had just lived through fifteen endless minutes that he could remember but not make sense of. Buffy was still holding the gun. She stared through him sightlessly. Tears streaming down her face, she turned and started walking back towards the music room. Panicked, Giles tried at one and the same time to put Drusilla down and to step over or around her. “Buffy!” he cried out as he stumbled to his knees, still encumbered with the weight of the unconscious vampire.“Buffy, stop!” She seemed not to hear him.

He was still struggling to get to his feet when Drusilla suddenly arose. Seeming not to see him, she swept him aside, as if she neither knew nor cared what physical strength she possessed. He clung to the balcony railing, on the wrong side of it, struggling not to fall to his death. He saw Drusilla follow Buffy down the hallway, towards the music room.

She had been shot. James, sweet James, had killed her. Yet, miraculously, Grace rose. She caught up to him in the music room. He had the gun to his head. Nothing in her heart but love now, no longer bound by fear, she reached out and took the weapon from him.

“Grace!” he gasped in anguished astonishment.

“Shush,” she murmured, folding him in her arms, “No more tears.”

“But I killed you!” he wailed, “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry.”

“No,” She said gently, “I’m the one who should be sorry, James. You thought I stopped loving you, but I never did. I loved you with my last breath.” Their lips met. Their souls met. They rose together into endless peace.

Buffy held Angel in her arms, fiercely, unable to let him go. It was not Angel’s body that she clung to, not his face that met her gaze, but she looked through those other eyes into his soul and she knew him, and she loved him, as she always had, as she always would.

“Buffy,” he breathed, running Drusilla’s hand over her face, over her lips, like a blind man trying to see, “oh, Buffy!”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. It sounded foolish, inadequate, redundant, but there was nothing else she could say.

“For what?” Angel asked. He seemed genuinely not to understand.

“I killed you,” she repeated, feeling like they were playing the same scene over again, unable to see why or how it could end as it just had.

Angel chuckled, shaking his head. “I was dead, when you met me, Buffy.”

“Technically maybe,” she conceded, her voice still filled with guilt and grief, “but you had a soul, and—”

“I am a soul,” he pointed out gently. “A soul that was lost. A soul that was damned. Because I threw my life away. I met death gladly, because I was bored! I invited the demon in. For a hundred years I suffered the torments of hell, only to return to a kind of hell on earth, to have to confront what I had done, what I had been responsible for in make that one monstrously foolish choice. And for another hundred years, I felt sorry for myself. I kept on throwing my life away. I told myself I was atoning, but I was merely suffering. It meant nothing. I was nothing.

“Then you came along and made me remember, made we _want_ to remember that I was a man once. You loved me and for the first time in my existence, I loved back with all my heart, no secret broken pieces held back, nothing missing, nothing hidden. When I held you in my arms and watched you fall asleep, loving me, trusting me, I knew, I absolutely knew that in your eyes, if only in your eyes, I was a thing worth saving. I was forgiven.

“That was the moment you saved me, Buffy. That was the moment you broke the curse and set me free. You didn’t destroy me; you redeemed me. I don’t need to forgive you. I need to thank you. Thank you, Buffy, for loving me!

“Your love is a miracle,” he said. Looking towards the doorway, releasing Buffy from his arms, he added pointedly, “It would take an even bigger fool than me not to see that.” Buffy turned to see Giles hovering on the threshold. She felt split in half. Her whole heart belonged to both of them. She stood at the center of the paradox, filled with love and pain.

“Did you hang around this dreary plane for all these weeks just to tell me that?” Giles asked gently, sadly, almost affectionately acerbic.

“Not, _just_ , for that,” Angel admitted with a small smile. “The disk,” he said urgently, “the curse, I’m begging you, destroy it.”

“But Jenny—” Giles started to object.

“—is at peace,” Angel assured him. “I was here when the demon parted her soul from her body. She was gone in the twinkling of an eye. She knew that she was loved. She knew she was forgiven. To be right with the one person who matters most is to be right with the world.”

Tears welled up in Giles eyes. He held them back by sheer dent of British stubbornness. “Is there anything else you need, before you go?” he asked.

“Buffy?” Angel asked, “Have you got a stake?”

“I don’t feel like killing you again right now,” she said, trying to laugh it off, feeling like she’d been kicked in the stomach.

“It’s not, for you,” he said, “It’s for me. I need to settle a debt. Drusilla was... someone special once, someone beautiful. She deserves to have her body put to rest.

“Giles,” Buffy said, with gentle resolution, “go get me a stake from the library, and the disk.” Giles obeyed. He didn’t have to ask what disk. He didn’t have to ask why he was being sent to get it. She wanted a moment alone to say goodbye.

When he got to his office, he took Jenny’s rose quarts from around his neck. He placed it gently in the box with the rest of her things. He took the disk from the box and a stake from his weapons cabinet and returned to the music room. Buffy and the vampire were both crying. They were not embracing, but leaning very close together, their faces and bodies touching over a broad area. They separated a little way when he entered the room, a pair of clasped hands being the last to part. There was a finality to their separation, of reluctance over come, of resolution reached. He handed the stake and the disk to Buffy, who handed them to Angel.

Buffy held Giles’ hand, tightening her grip as Angel placed the plastic and metal disk over Drusilla’s heart and plunged his stake through both of them. The dark lady crumbled to dust and ash. For an instant, Giles thought he saw the face of a lovely, innocent young girl arranged in a beatific expression of release. When, she was gone, Angel was gone. Buffy sagged against him weeping. He half led, half carried her from the room.

Back in the library, they sat for a long while in silence. Giles tried to make sense of everything he had witnessed. Buffy stared blankly into the middle distance. She wasn’t crying anymore. She wasn’t doing anything.“Are you...feeling any better?” he asked at last.

Buffy sighed. “I want to be happy for them, all of them, I really do... I just don’t see how things get turned so inside out. I mean, I _know_ why James picked me. It was never about... what happened between the two of us. I killed Angel. You can’t call it anything else. And he... thanked me. James killed Grace and she forgave him. And she... destroyed him... she killed him... or might as well have, but he forgives her too! Part of me just doesn’t get it.”

“You know,” said Giles, reaching over and putting a supportive arm around her shoulders, “a very popular philosopher once said that those who show mercy to others will be blessed with mercy when they need it themselves.”

Buffy gave him a look. “You’re not going religious on me, are you?” she asked skeptically.

Giles shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, with a small, gently ironic smile. “Vampires don’t flee in terror from the sight of the CNN logo, so he must have had something a bit extra going in the way of truth. In all seriousness, Buffy,” he added, “James didn’t only pick you, Grace Newman picked me, and I think with equally good reason.”

“It’s not the same thing!” Buffy objected fiercely.

“Just... hear me out,” Giles insisted. “I got so wrapped up in... punishing myself in... indulging my own guilt... in seeking out the suffering that I deserved, that I never really let myself understand what you needed from me, what you deserved. I was too busy seeing the wrong in what _I_ ’d done, in what _happened_ between us, to see the right in what exists between us, in what we _are_ together, which is infinitely more important.”

“Wait,” said Buffy, sitting up a little straighter, “could you repeat that, that was my hopeful ear.”

“I love you,” Giles said, earnestly, taking her hand, “I know now that I always have and I always will, and that no other fact, no other circumstance can ever be as important. I also know that I’ve done wrong by you,” he went on sincerely. “You were entitled to more time—two more summers at least, I dare say—to be a girl and not a mother, to find your own way in the world. Through my... impatience, my lack of self control, I’ve deprived you of that. But I’d be twice the fool that even I am to compound that error now by turning my back on you, on _us_.

“And so,” he said, kneeling before her, “I beg you, Buffy...” he pulled a small object from his shirt pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Have mercy on a poor, miserable old sinner. Take all that I have, all that I am, and make me a wiser and a happier man.”

Buffy stared for a long moment at the thing Giles had handed her. It was a ring with a large, flat, colorless rectangular stone. She looked up into his hopeful eyes, level with hers even though he was down... on... one... knee.... “Holy crap, Giles!” she said. “This is a diamond ring!”

He laughed a little nervously, “Yes it is. It was my grandmother’s. It’s... a little old fashioned perhaps, not cut for maximum sparkle, but it is flawless. It’s the only thing I can offer you that is.” When she didn’t say anything in response, he went on babbling nervously, “I want you to _know_ ,” he tried to explain, “to be... confident, that when I say I love you... this time, when I say I love you... I don’t only mean I _feel_ love for you... I mean that my love belongs to you... that I belong to you... or I will... if you’ll have me. I want you to know I’m through changing my mind.”

“Does this mean... What does this mean?” She asked not quite able to believe the obvious implications.

“Buffy,”Giles said earnestly, taking her free hand in both of his, “I want you to be—I _ask_ you to be—my wife.”

“Oh, wow,” she said, still trying to process information. Husbands and wives and diamond rings were all someday things, _grownup_ things, how-are-the-tax-rates-and-have-you-given-much-thought-to-life-insurance kind of things. Then again so were babies and forevers... and Giles. Her hands were shaking. So were his. ‘24-7, for the rest of your life.’ “This is... kind of scary,” she said out loud.

“Too scary?” he asked, his eyes grasping at her heart like the desperate hands of a man hanging from the edge of a cliff.

“No,” she said with a sudden, wonderful sense of clarity. “Not too scary. This is my life: my scary, complicated, not-at-all-normal life. Whether it’s a year or a hundred years...”She put the ring on her finger, looking into his eyes, now filled with joy and wonder and love. “I want my life to be with you.”

“Oh Buffy!” Giles cried hoarsely, taking her by both hands, pulling her to her feet, wrapping her in his arms, “I am the luckiest...” He kissed her lips, “...damned...” She kissed him in return with fierce, hungry passion, “...fool...” She pulled him to her by his shirt collar; their mouths made love to one another. She pulled his shirt open, popping half the buttons off in the process. “...that ever...” Kissing her again, he shrugged out of his shirt. She pushed him down on the reading table, landing solidly on top of him. “...lived.”

He tasted her lips again then kissed her throat, her shoulders, the tops of her breasts, as his hands roamed luxuriously over the curves of her body. The discomfort of the hard polished oak at his back, with Buffy’s weight pressing delightfully down on him, was an unpleasant reminder that the rest of the universe continued to exist despite their passion. A universe filled with police, school officials and vampires, any of which could walk into this building at any moment. Giles rolled onto his side rolling Buffy with him and, indulging in only a few more kisses and caresses, breathed against her throat, “Buffy, hadn’t we better do this at home?”

“Awww,” she pouted, only about three quarters kidding, “spoil my fun why don’t ya.” But she was smiling when she hopped down from the table. She was so beautiful, so precious. He clasped his hands behind her back and kissed her, a quick, sweet, tingling, affectionate little kiss, before releasing her. He shrugged back into his ruined shirt, letting it hang open, grinning pretty widely himself.

They walked back to Giles’ car together, arms around one another’s waists, fingers laced together on both hands, like two school kids in love. Two or three times, they sneaked a quick kiss on the lips. Pausing, leaning against the passenger side of the convertible, they kissed a little more passionately. She pulled him to her, entwining her fingers in his hair. “Now cut that out,” he mock scolded, pulling her hands back down to her sides, his firm, Watcherly expression betrayed only by the twinkle in his eyes and the little laugh lines around them.

“Make me,” she said, wickedly, grabbing his hips and pulling his pelvis against hers. He kissed her again, unable to help himself. His brain was operating at maybe fifty-percent capacity, but it was enough to know that they were too dangerously exposed to be doing what they were doing. In fact, it was dangerous for them to be seen on the street together at all, especially this time of night.

Taking her hands firmly in his, he pulled back from her again, pulling her more fully to her feet from her leaning position against the car. “In all seriousness,” he said, still grinning boyishly, “We need to get out of here.” He opened her car door for her and couldn’t resist giving her a quick smack on the bottom as she turned to get in.

“You’ll pay for that,” she grinned back.

“Without a doubt,” he said with grim amusement, getting behind the wheel. His career, _both_ his careers, were for all intents and purposes over. He’d be lucky to escape prosecution. His father would be enraged by his disgrace. His enemies on the Council would relish the news of the prodigal son’s return to the pigsty. But Buffy was his. Tonight that was all that mattered.

It took five minutes to drive back to his apartment, which was five minutes too long. Giles felt almost as if he could have hopped out of the convertible without opening the door, just as he would have thirty years ago. He knew better. Buffy didn’t wait for him to open her door as he would have liked, but she did let him carry her across the threshold. She was his bride and this was her home now. Everything else was a technicality.

Giles leaned back against the front door, snapping it shut, lowering Buffy gently to her feet. She leaned into him, both hands on his chest, kissing his lips, his jaw, his ear.“Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered. They walked up together, wrapped in each other’s arms. Buffy laughed with joy, reminded of the painful, frustrating climb they’d made together only a few days ago. Once again their hearts where pounding. “I think we’ve gone from Hell to Heaven!” She said as they reached the top of the stairs.

“And of course,” he said, opening the bedroom door with something between a flourish and a bow, then catching her suddenly up in his arms, “thinking makes it so!”

Change your mind and change the world? So far it seemed to be working. He laid her down on the bed, then lay on top of her, running his hands the very short distance up her skirt, expertly preparing her for absolutely premeditated sex. She’d never been touched exactly that way by any man’s hands before. She started peeling clothing off both of their bodies just to have something to do with her own hands, which were being put out of a job, maybe permanently, by a more experienced and qualified candidate.

They were both bare-chested now, both breathing hard. She ran her fingers through the curls on his chest. He was hairier than she remembered, but then, few textures are memorable if they have to compete with asphalt. This time, everything was slower, more deliberate. He felt more present with her. She kissed him, slow and deep, enjoying the knowledge that it was love that they were making. Suddenly, his talented hands were withdrawn. “Don’t stop!” she gasped.

“I’m only beginning,” he grinned, rising from her slightly to remove his pants. She took the opportunity to wriggle out of her skirt as well. He wrapped his naked body around hers and they began making love in earnest. He knew exactly what to do. It was as though he had some sort of psychic power. Every touch, every stroke, every kiss and lick and nibble was perfectly timed, perfectly placed. She was coming already, but he was nowhere near finished. She clung to him, gasping, as he continued to move pleasurably within her.

She wondered how a man who could do these beautiful things to a woman’s body could also be too nervous to ask a woman out without practicing first on a chair, too nervous in fact to ask out the chair. It was one of the many things about him that she couldn’t quite make add up, or maybe part of one big thing she suddenly realized. He was a bundle of contradictions, in a way that made her think, oddly enough, of Angel, like someone broken and put back together a different way.

She stroked his cheeks, his jaw, his lips lightly with the tips on her fingers, like a blind man trying to see. ‘Who are you Rupert Giles?’ He kissed the tips of her fingers and then the palm of her hand, working his way up the inside of her arm to her breasts, his timing still perfect, the actions of his lips and tongue punctuating the spaces between those other motions, sensation complementing sensation. She pulled his face to hers and kissed him, overwhelmed with love.

Rupert was getting past the point of holding on to any control. In seconds, he wouldn’t have to. Buffy was gasping, clinging to him again, working up to another orgasm. He pulled one of her knees up just a little, positioning her the way he wanted her. The quality of her gasps told him it made a positive difference. He thrust his cock inside her deeper and faster now, grunting and sweating. The noise Buffy made was as loud as a scream yet as gentle as a sigh. “Oh my... Goddess!” he cried, collapsing into her arms.

She curled against his chest with a satisfied smile. He felt like passing out, but he forced himself to remain conscious, not wanting to miss a moment with her. It had to be near midnight. She’d have to be going home soon. To her other home.

He was reminded irresistibly of Hades and Persephone, actually a much better story in a global culture, with the perspective to see that winter is always summer somewhere. It felt strange to have the heat of summer in his heart again after so many years of winter. After the months of fear and uncertainty, freezing and thawing, letting Jenny pull one nail at a time from the shuttered windows of his closed up, empty heart, suddenly, Buffy had blown the front door open. He had to remind himself not to let her pull it off its hinges. His shutters may have been nailed down too tight for too long, but they had been put up for a reason.

“What are you thinking about?” Buffy asked, smoothing a hand over his evidently furrowed brow.

Giles smiled. “Greco-Roman Mythology,” he said.

“Do you _know_ how majorly weird you are?” she teased, snuggling against him affectionately.

He kissed her softly and wrapped her tighter in his embrace. “It’s a family trait,” he said. It felt odd to realize that when he said ‘family’ he included her. He mostly meant her in fact, along with someone who was, as yet, a mere suggestion of a third party.

She had the weird feeling that she was somehow cheating on her mother, changing family loyalties behind her back. A Giles by any other name?How was that part supposed to work anyway? “I love you,” she said out loud, finding comfort in repeating that one solid, simple fact.

“But you’re worried about something,” Giles discerned, focusing on her more intently.

“Is it even legal for us to get married?” she asked, sitting up against the headboard.

He sat up next to her. “In this state,” he admitted, “practically speaking, no. We’d need court approval, which is to say, the approval of the Del Bacco County Probate Division, which is Judge Fondren’s wife and Mark Engels’ first cousin.”

“Yikes,” said Buffy. “I kind of hate small town America.”

He smiled, “I’m glad one of us is allowed to say so. At any rate, Hal tells me we have absolutely no chance with her, not surprisingly.”

“You talked to Hal?” Buffy asked, cocking her head to one side.

“A bit,” he admitted.

“So what’s the plan then?” she asked, “Mexico?”

He shook his head. “A foreign marriage, at least without parental consent, is going to be voidable. We’d also be breaking federal law in crossing the border for that purpose, with the possible bonus that I might not be allowed to reenter the country. Arizona or Nevada’s probably our best bet. We’d still need your mother’s permission, but thereafter, we’d be entitled to ‘full faith and credit’ in California. The marriage couldn’t be attacked by your father, for example, or the government.”

“You’ve clearly given this a lot of thought,” said Buffy, almost accusingly.

He chuckled, “Rupert Giles,” he said, “delighted to make your acquaintance.”

“Alright,” she conceded, “fair point, but if you knew about this this afternoon, you could have said something. I’ve been miserable all day.”

“I am sorry about that,” he apologized. “It’s just... I wasn’t sure enough yet, I suppose. I don’t think I was really sure until I saw you were about to shoot yourself.”

She laughed. “I don’t think being possessed by a suicidal ghost is a turn on for most people, but hey, whatever gets you there.”

“I only meant,” he explained, “I knew then, I never wanted to lose you. I realized how little the rest of it mattered.”

“I knew what you meant,” she assured him warmly. “What I don’t know is how I’m supposed to explain all this to Mom. I mean, what’s our winning argument, the fact that you got me pregnant?”

He laughed. “I think it has a better shot than, ‘we’re madly in love and we don’t want to have to hide the fact that we’re having loads of amazing sex.’ Though, I admit, the one argument implies enough of the other to be dangerous.”

“Plus, I think, in this part of the country at least, the whole shotgun thing is a little passé.”

“Yes, it’s a pity your mother can’t be a toothless Arkansas housewife with a sixth grade education. In that case it would be a cinch, wouldn’t it?”

“Either that or she’d get her seven brothers to drag you to death behind a pickup truck,” Buffy joked.

“Yes, well, in all seriousness, we need to be prepared for the possibility that she could react rather badly. If she were to insist, she could probably have charges brought, particularly in light of my position at the school. Hal, suggested I ought to resign sooner, rather than later, but I fear that would be tipping our hand to the Council, and I confess, I haven’t yet thought of a strategy for dealing with them.”

“Well,” Buffy sighed, “it’s getting late. I think we should be like Scarlet O’Hara and worry about it tomorrow.”Sighing himself, Giles started to get to his feet, casting an eye around the room for his clothes.“Where are you going?” Buffy asked.

“I have to get dressed if I’m going to give you a ride home.”

“I am home,” she said earnestly. “Mom’s out of town until Monday,” she added, realizing that was the source of his confusion. “She tucked me in over the phone before I ever went out. We’re all kinds of good.”

Smiling, he came back to bed. “Thank God,” he said, “I don’t think I could sleep alone tonight.” She snuggled back into his arms once more. He held her close, still not wanting to fall asleep, still not wanting it to be morning.

“You’ll never be alone,” she murmured against his chest, “I’m yours, from here to eternity. I don’t care if we have to get married in the chapel of the state penitentiary. If we have to live in London or Baghdad or the on the dark side of the moon, wherever you are is home.”

He pulled her to him, tucking her head under his chin. “My love!” he whispered, “Oh my love!” Tears of joy ran down his face. Let the morning come. Let the seas boil. Let the skies fall. In her eyes, if only in her eyes, his sins were forgiven. He was saved by her grace.

 

 

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